Green Groups Rush to Save Millions of Zagros Oaks in Iran

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Environmental groups in Iran’s Kurdish-populated Ilam province are campaigning against a government plan to cut down some 18 million diseased oak trees in the Zagros Mountains.

The Ilam Friends of the Environment has been campaigning for two months, trying to muster enough public support to get government officials to take notice of opposition to the plan. The group has expressed its concern in a letter to the authorities.

The government says the reason behind the planned felling is “oak wilt,” a fungal disease that quickly kills trees and is infectious.

But green groups say that is a pretext, and that officials should try to control the disease through other means, such as advanced agro-technology.

The head of the Ilam Forest Protection says that the only way to prevent the total devastation of Zagros oaks is to cut down 18 million trees as a preventive measure.

According to Iranian officials, over 1.3 million hectares of Zagros forests are afflicted with the disease.

In support of its campaign to protect the trees, the environmental group has produced a short film about the lives of squirrels in the Zagros range, hoping to raise awareness about the potential impact of the plan on wildlife.

The oak-thick Zagros Mountain range which straddles both Iran and Iraq, covering some 200,000 square kilometers, is considered by Kurds in both countries as an important natural resource of the Kurdish regions.

Some 10 percent of the region’s oak trees have been devastated by now, due to years of wars and neglect by governments in Tehran and Baghdad, according to statistics.