TEHRAN – In order to educate, promote and attract people's participation, 215,240 people are trained as 'partners of nature', director of education, promotion and public participation of the Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization, has said.

Some 83 percent of the lands are presided over by the Organization, including forests and pastures, ISNA quoted Hossein Mirzaei as saying on Monday.

On a large scale, the government is not able to manage these areas alone. Therefore, there is a need for people's participation to preserve natural resources, he further stated.

Nature partners are people such as farmers and those who implement projects to protect natural resources.In this regard, we have a project called 'Partners of Nature' which is defined in three levels of students, promoters and partners among different classes of people. So, some 215,240 people are recruited as nature partners in order to educate, promote and attract people’s participation.

Every nature partner can be a factor in promoting the culture of natural resource protection. Therefore, their task is mostly in the field of cultural development and executive works of the natural resources week, including planting saplings.

Nature partners are people who are mostly present in the field of natural resources, such as farmers, operators and implementers of natural resources projects, who can help us in the protection department.

Referring to the education of students, he said that a new program will be compiled by the end of the year (March 2023), through which, 250,000 students across the country will be educate about preservation of natural resources.

Lack of environmental defenders

Currently, 5,000 rangers are active to protect natural resources, however, one protection force is needed for every 2,000 hectares of forest and one protection force for every 10,000 hectares of pasture, Ali Mohammadi Moghaddam, deputy commander of the protection unit of the FRWMO said.

According to Mohammadi Moghaddam, there are currently 135 million hectares of forests and pastures in the country, with one ranger per 6,000 hectares of forest, and one ranger per 30,000 hectares of pastures.
The number of rangers in Iran is one-tenth of the global standard.

Qasem Sabz’ali, former commander of the forest protection unit of the Forests, Range, and Watershed Management Organization, said in April 2018 that some 15,000 hectares of forests burn in wildfires annually in Iran that 95 percent of them are caused by humans.

Forest wildfire brings a heavy economic burden amounting to 560 million rials (about $13,000) per hectare for the country, he added.

FB/MG