Environmental Activists and NGOs - Part 2
Environmental Organizations and NGOs in Iran
Centre for Sustainable Development and Environment (Cenesta)
- Community empowerment and equity (participatory development planning, social animation, Community Investment Funds and rural credit schemes, women and development initiatives);
- Community health, environmental health and pollution control;
- National and international policies for sustainable development;
- Social communication.
- Renewable energy (solar, wind, biomass technologies);
- Sustainable agriculture (non-chemical control of pests, regenerative soil management, agro forestry, farming systems research);
- Collaborative management of natural resources (common property management, traditional management institutions for watershed, fisheries, water, pasture, etc.);
- Living with the desert (policy and practice on arid lands, nomadic pastoralism, climatic and vernacular architecture);
- Environmental impact assessment studies
Earth Watchers Center
Earth Watchers Center was started in 2002 as an NGO to help reduce the existing environmental problems in Iran through raising public awareness. The Center works toward raising public awareness and knowledge by providing information to people from all different social strata, from the layman up to the highest level of decision makers through the publication of EWC quarterly, plus the news on its website.
The motto of the group is "From Information, to awareness, to conservation". The group actively looks for and investigates activities and policies that cause environmental damage, and publishes a set of warnings, news flash articles, and photo articles on the website.
Green Front of Iran
Green Front of Iran was started by four medical students in Tehran in 1989. They facilitate formation of professional working teams in different areas of environmental issues, especially by engaging the youth in voluntary activities. They have programs to teach environmental ethics to children and teenagers. They organize protection and cleanup events for polluted public areas like mountain regions or coastal areas to increase sensitivity and awareness among people. They also publish the quarterly "Solh-e-Sabz" which serves as a forum for presenting environmental news, suggestions, and criticisms.
The GFI website does not reliably work as it is hosted inside Iran. GFI has developed a membership program and has about 6000 members in various parts of Iran.
International Institute for Caspian Studies
International Institute for Caspian Studies is a non governmental research and consultancy institute based in Tehran and aimed at promoting and undertaking scholarly studies regarding political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, and legal issues of the Caspian region. Founded in 1998 the institute seeks to build a comprehensive research and information center capable of encouraging researchers and other interested parties to follow the multifaceted issues of the region and bring new perspectives to the regional problems. The main areas of research are the countries bordering the Caspian Sea, with special focus on topics of common interest in the region.
IICS publishes papers and organizes periodical seminars and conferences in cooperation with other international parties in order to promote dialogue and understanding among officials, academics, and business people regarding existing issues in the region. These activities are aimed at presenting political and economical points of view, as well as prospects for energy and environmental projects in the region.
Iran Society for Development of Landscape and Environmental Conservation (ISDLE)
ISDLE is an NGO that tries acts as a hub between universities, organizations, and people regarding environmental issues. ISDLE invites scholars to submit papers and reports, sends "environmental reporters" to different places to report back about issues such as pollution, water problems, and land usage problems, conducts seminars and training courses to educate the public, and arrange interviews with experts and officials around environmental issues.
They also maintain a website, Sabz Press, which features environmental news from Iran and other countries.
Iranian Society of Environmentalists (IRSEN)
IRSEN was established to promote environmental knowledge qualitatively through the integration of sustainable development, appropriate technologies, and leveraging expert research activities in environmental fields. They hold public meetings on important issues on environmental topics, arrange training workshops, and set up group trips to familiarize members with different aspects of the Iranian ecosystems such as forests, deserts, and mountains. The members are mostly experts and scholars from academic background.
They publish a monthly newsletter, and the quarterly "Man and Environment" journal which was published until 2001, and later morphed into the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology which includes research papers from experts in the field. So far 40 issues of the journal have been published, of which about half are available online.
Women Society Against Environmental Pollution (WSAEP)
WSAEP was started in 1990 by Mahlagha Mallah to engage women as well as teachers and officials in increasing awareness on environmental pollution. WSAEP arranges community efforts in different parts of Iran both to educate and to encourage participation in environmental activities. They also work on strategic and long term initiatives such as adding environmental content to school textbooks and adding environmental protection basics to university courses.
In addition to education women, from classes to door to door visits, WSAEP has tried to educate the educators and decision makers to increase environmental awareness and actions in a more systematic way. As an example, they have conducted environmental training for the officials of Tehran Municipality District 15. The NGO also publishes a quarterly, Cry of the Earth. They currently have fourteen branch offices in different parts of Iran, with each branch focusing on local activities related to their own geographical area.
The news and content on WSAEP's website is diverse and up to date. Their attention to youth as the next generation which needs to learn about the importance of protecting the environment is notable. In particular they work with mothers, or as Mahlagha calls them the "natural teachers," to help them educate their children about the environment. They publish stories, arrange kindergarten and school activities, and make environmental awareness a fun activity for the kids. The image shows a poster from one of their events.
Individuals Who have Traveled to Iran for Environmental Work
Brian Coad, Canadian Museum of Nature
Brian Coad is a Research Scientist working for the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario. He studies freshwater eco-regions and freshwater fish in order to categorize and look for the species that need to be preserved.
Brian was the first person who performed environmental research on systematic and taxonomic research of Iranian fish, in trying to figure out what species occurred where, identifying species, and describing new ones. In order to conserve species they must be accurately identified, their distribution and decline/increase known, the presence of exotics documented as these can adversely impact native fish, endemic species determined, unusual habitats defined in order to protect the fish that live there.
Most of Brian's field work was carried out in Iran in the 1970s when he taught at Shiraz University. He has been back for short visits since - fortunately it is relatively easy to collect enough scientific samples to last for decades of research. After the revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, a new generation of professors and their students became interested in his field of research and he now gets daily queries for help and, increasingly, the professors and students are taking the lead themselves.
During his three-year residence in Iran Brian led field trips to most parts of the country to collect specimens that now serve as a research base in Ottawa. He visited Fars, Hormozgan, Sistan, Baluchestan, Khuzestan, the Caspian shore, Zagros Mountains, Lut Desert, and central Iran.
Brian wants the result of his work to be easily accessible to the researchers and environmental scientists in Iran. Much of the earlier literature and the original specimens on which new species were described are found in European and North American museums and libraries and are not easily available to Iranians. Brian's book remains as a website, and a colleague in Iran is translating it into Persian for publication. The website is continually updated as new information becomes available.
Rob Shahmir, Mashal Khazar Darya
Over a seven year period, Rob worked in Iran on proper training of Iranians around environmental issues. He established an environmental organization, Mashal Khazar Darya, involved in implementation of environmental training at a cultural level in rural and urban communities in Iran.
He also focused on demining, from environmental, humanitarian, and commercial aspects. He worked on updating/upgrading of landmine detection and neutralization technologies; and the introduction of risk assessment and stochastic methods that allowed his organization Mine Action Iran (MAI) to successfully clear over 60 square kilometers of land in some of the worst mine infested areas of Iran, left from the Iran-Iraq war.
Iranian Environmental Weblogs and News Websites
Green Blog
Green Blog was built as an automated aggregator of more than 160 environmental related blogs written in Farsi. It fetches news from all these blogs, automatically updates its newsfeed every hour, and presents the viewers with the latest articles, news, and viewpoints on environmental issues in Iran. The website is a volunteer effort done by a university professor in Iran.
Iran NGO News
Iran NGO News and NGO News Yahoo Group are run by a group of NGOs in Iran to share their news and events, and are moderated by the House of Culture and Sustainable Development. Most of the news posted to the blog and the mailing list are environmental related.
Mohit Zist Forum
The Mohit Zist Forum is run by a student interested in environmental issues. It covers news and topics about environmental issues, like the Green Blog. The main difference is that the forum is not an automated aggregator, but a live forum where interested people can contribute content to, post environmental news, and comment on what's posted on the site.
Sabz Press
Sabz Press, a website maintained by ISDLE, features environmental news from Iran and other countries. Sabz Press seems to be among the most up-to-date sources of environmental news in Iran. It covers events, research articles, reports, press, policies and policy changes, and international news.
Payvand Environmental and Geography News (English)
Payvand, the San Francisco Bay Area based website that has been dedicated to Iran and Iranian's issues for the past fifteen years, has a permanent Environment and Geography news section. In addition to bringing environmental news about Iran to the audience, most of the reports on this page are accompanied with photos of various parts of Iran. Given the diverse climate and natural geography of Iran the photos are a great complement to Payvand's environmental news
Other Diaspora Environmental Initiatives
Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) Environmental Program
The ACCESS Environmental Program promotes the right of every person to live in a clean, safe, healthy environment and community. Their work combines community education, community-based research, and advocacy for environmental health and environmental justice.
Their goals include protecting and improving environmental quality for the Arab American community and others in Southeastern Michigan; promoting awareness among Arab Americans of environmental concerns, and their impacts on health; and developing environmental leadership among Arab Americans, particularly among the youth.
Asian American Environmental Partnership
Asian American Environmental Partnership is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding of environmental issues in the Asian American community by building partnership and inspiring diversity in leadership.
AEEP educates the public on a wide variety of environmental topics including radon, air quality, used motor oil recycling, household hazardous waste, ozone depletion, water conservation and many other related environmental topics that concern the lives of Southern Californians.
Coalition of the Environment and Jewish Life
Coalition of the Environment and Jewish Life is the leading Jewish environmental organization in the United States. Since its founding in 1993, COEJL has helped tens of thousands of Jews make a connection between Judaism and the environment. COEJL has put environmental protection on the agenda of the organized Jewish community and made the case to elected officials and decision-makers that protecting the environment is a moral and religious obligation.
Today, COEJL represents 29 national Jewish organizations spanning the full spectrum of Jewish religious and communal life and serves as the voice of the organized Jewish community on environmental issues in Washington, D.C. and around the country. COEJL has its headquarters in New York and a national board of 23 trustees. COEJL is a program of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA).
National Hispanic Environmental Council
National Hispanic Environmental Council seeks to educate, empower, and engage the Hispanic community on environmental and sustainable development issues; encourage Latinos to actively work to preserve and protect the environment; provide a national voice for Latinos before federal, state, and nonprofit environmental decision-makers; and actively assist Latinos to pursue the many career, educational, and policy opportunities in the environment and natural resources field.
One of the goals of NHEC as a diaspora organization is to fight the stereotypes and dispel the myth that Latinos do not care about or are not involved in the environment. They highlight the many individuals and Hispanic organizations who work every day as good stewards of the environment, yet who labor under misconceptions and stereotypes that somehow our community does not care about America's natural resources and heritage.
Also of Interest
The Christensen Fund
The Christensen Fund focuses on the "bio-cultural" - the rich but neglected adaptive interweave of people and place, culture and ecology. The Fund's mission is to buttress the efforts of people and institutions who believe in a bio-diverse world infused with artistic expression and work to secure ways of life and landscapes that are beautiful, bountiful and resilient. They focus on a cross section between bio-diversity, preservation, and arts.
Through a grant making process as well as capacity and network building, the Christensen Fund backs the efforts of communities in certain local geographical areas plus their alliances with scholars, artists, advocates and others. These geographical areas include American Southwest, West and Central Asia, Northern Australia and a couple of other areas.
Allen D. and Carmen M. Christensen founded the Christensen Fund in 1957. Their interest in the visual arts and music strongly influenced the Fund's direction. One of their children, Diane Christensen, and Atossa Soltani, the founder of Amazon Watch and one of the people featured in this article, serve on the fund's Board of Directors. The fund has supported various organizations over time, and has expanded into areas related to environmental conservation.
Earthjustice
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment.
Founded in 1971, Earthjustice works through the courts on behalf of citizen groups, scientists, and other parties to ensure government agencies and private interests follow the law. On Capitol Hill, Earthjustice works to protect and strengthen federal environmental laws and preserve special places, like the Arctic. They have nine regional offices around the country, including an international program in Oakland and a policy and legislative team based in Washington D.C.