سازمان منابع طبیعی و آبخیزداری کشور

After a two-year hiatus due to Covid-19 Pandemic, the first meeting of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee with the national media was held at IRIB headquarters on Tuesday, with the presence of Dr. Mohammad Reza Ja’fari, Director General of Channel 2 of IRIB and Dr. Massoud Mansour, Deputy Minister and Head of FRWO as well as Managers of IRIB and FRWO.

According to FRWO’s website, in this meeting which was organized aimed at promoting natural resource culture for the protection of the environment and natural resources of the country, Head of FRWO said: "A strong Iran, a resilient economy, food security and biosecurity are among the meaningful words whose main components and basic foundations are water, soil and natural resources."

Massoud Mansour described Iran as an arid and semi-arid land with a rainfall of one third of the world average and the rate of water evaporation being three times the world average, and as a result we are witnessing high soil erosion in the country.

In another part of his report to the national media, he mentioned the existence of 40,000 qanats in the country, which have dried up due to drought and destructive human behavior with nature, so that people's livelihoods have been affected.

He said: "The drying up of these qanats has had a direct impact on agriculture sector and the lives of the villagers, and in many villages has led to migration and marginalization in cities."

Head of FRWO further referred to the vegetation regions of the country and said that more than 40% of fresh water is produced in the Zagros forests and this capacity and capability of the forest should be used to produce oxygen and absorb carbon and sand and dust storm (SDS) and needs culture promoting that IRIB as national media can play a vital role in this regard.