TEHRAN – Masoud Mansour, head of the Forests, Rangelands, and Watershed Management Organization, has expressed the country’s readiness to share knowledge on natural resources to Kazakhstan.

Considering good experiences in dealing with desertification in Iran, the knowledge can be transferred to Kazakhstan, he added.

He made the remarks in a meeting held in Tehran on Monday with Kazakhstan’s Vice Minister of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources Talgat Momyshev.

During the meeting, the two sides discussed ways to enhance cooperation between the two countries in the field of natural resources.

Noting that significant success has been achieved in the field of desertification in Iran, Mansour said that Iran has a long history in this field and so far, has turned 1.5 million hectares of desert lands into forests.

The Iranian official said that there are 14 million hectares of forests, over 80 million hectares of pastures, and 30 million hectares of desert lands in Iran, IRNA reported.

Natural resources, especially forests, are now managed by the Natural Resources Organization through conservation measures and without wood harvesting, he added.

Momyshev, for his part, expressed satisfaction to enhance cooperation between the two nations and highlighted that Iran can establish good relations with Kazakhstan by transferring experiences.

Referring to the drying up of Ural Lake as the country’s biggest environmental challenge, he lamented that with the drying up of Ural Lake, more than 100,000 tons of salt dust is produced and dispersed into the air annually.

With its expert work and technologies in the field of lake rehabilitation, afforestation in the desert and non-desert lands, as well as technical services in the field of watershed management, Iran can help Kazakhstan to counter the issue, he stated.

In 2021 alone, about 61,000 hectares of the lands were planted in Kazakhstan, and currently, the country's forest area reached 6 million hectares, he noted.

There are many fields of cooperation between Iran and Kazakhstan in the field of agriculture and natural resources, and our experts have agreed to use the technical and specialized services of Iranians in this regard, he further concluded.

Deforestation worrisome

Ali Banagar, head of the forestry scientific association affiliated with the Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, said in December 2021 that the trend of deforestation in Iran is worrisome.

“Apart from natural factors, villa and road construction, development projects, dam construction, wood smuggling, encroachment on forests and land grabbing, forest fires, coal mining, livelihood activities including agriculture, providing fuel and excessive livestock grazing, social and economic problems, and exploitation of natural resources, pests, environmental pollution and landfills, and many other factors have reduced the quantity and quality of forests.

Each of these variables has increased or decreased in recent years, but the result is alarming,” he explained.

Between 2015 and 2020, approximately 12,000 hectares of forests across the country were wiped out annually, Reza Bayani an official with Forests, Range and Watershed Management Organization, said.

He went on to say that the country’s forests are estimated at 14.3 million hectares, the country’s northern forests have been estimated at 2,080,000 million hectares about 60 years ago, and today it is stretching to 2,004,000 hectares taking replanted areas into account.

FB/MG