See: The Water and Environmental Crisis in Iran, a conversation between environmental activist Mohammad Darvish and ecologist Adel Jalili

The Secret of the Liquidation of Natural Resources

Darvish: I hope that today's conversation with one of the country's leading ecologists will be of interest to you. A person who has worked hard for the natural resources of this country is a familiar name and I have no doubt that this conversation will be of interest to you. That person is Adel Jalili. You undoubtedly did the most work and service to the existence of the largest ecological garden in Iran, one of the largest ecological gardens in the world, the National Botanical Garden, and you had the longest management period. You loved the Botanical Garden like your child, you worked until midnight, and you were very passionate about the natural resources of this country, you were hurt, and today we want to talk about this story

Darvish: In terms of the volume of investment in the field of natural resources

Jalili: In general, the total budget that is in the government in all sectors, we make the government on a larger scale, I don't mean only the executive branch, that is, all of these, the total budget that is spent in proportion to the GDP in the world, compare which government has good resources at its disposal. Iran is 110th, next to thirty or forty poor countries. Countries like Scandinavia, Western Europe, some of them reach 50 percent, although they have high GDP, their population is also small. I was looking for a discussion about why this happened. Most of these European countries, or especially the Scandinavian countries, are dominated by social democratic tendencies, meaning they consider the services they provide to the people to be the government's responsibility, we do not have this approach at all. When we address the issue of the government, they do not pay attention to these indicators. Even when I compared the indicator of the workforce that works in the government with the total working population in the country, we were still the 73rd country in the world, meaning we are among the bottom third of countries. Even now that Trump has taken the plunge to reduce its forces, the federal government has about 23% of the working population, and this number is very large, for us it is 14.5%.

A government that is in debt

Darvish: It is heavily in debt

Jalili: Based on this indicator, when the government has this poverty in human resources and financial resources, what does structural reform mean in order to reduce costs? That is why the government has problems in education and research. I had a study. The global average spent on research in the world is 2.33%, meaning that every country spends 2.33% of its gross domestic product on research. Some developed countries spend about 4.5%. We also reach the Middle East, which is usually miserable in research. A country like Turkey is 1%. The highest number was 7/10 of a percent for a year during Khatami's time. After that, we were below 6/10 of a percent, and that research is on the ground because it has no financial resources.

The small share of research in Iran

Darvish: They say that if the share of research in GDP is less than one percent, research is practically ineffective.

Jalili: There are three types of R&D research in the world: applied research institutions and development. Basic research institutions that are under the supervision of the Ministry of Science and Universities work on basic research and topics. R&D. Large companies like Apple and large car manufacturing companies, some of them spend up to 30-40 percent of their net profit on R&D. When we pay attention to these indicators, the serious question is: where is the big government that we should make smaller? What do we expect from a poor government to do great things? The parliament closed the resolution and the government came in a year ago, as if the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad had worked with the Employment Affairs Organization. What came out under the title of the resolution, I can easily say, is a disaster. In natural resources, our sensitivity is on natural resources

Mirage of productivity

Darvish: Productivity and these stories

Jalili: The Ministry of Agricultural Jihad has already merged three or four ministries, and food security, natural resources, rural development, and some environmental issues are among its duties. When food security is discussed, you cannot ignore natural resources. Natural resources are the basis of food security. They put all of these aside, applied food security, then defined the structure. They abandoned the structure of specialized governmental organizations and gave their duties to the ministry headquarters, meaning a large, incompetent ministry that has all the expertise that should be used within the framework of those relevant organizations, gathered in the headquarters, which practically cannot do its job and ultimately becomes paralyzed. Not only is food security compromised, but natural resources are also destroyed. They said that the Veterinary Organization, Environment, Plant Protection, Fisheries, and Land Affairs Organization should be dissolved. I remember exactly when I was the Iranian ambassador to the FAO, one day they called representatives of the European Union and said they wanted to hold a meeting. They said that we import meat from Central Asia to Europe. There are a number of diseases. We examined the entire Middle East and Central Asia. The only country that has a serious structure for monitoring diseases between animals and humans is your Veterinary Organization. You can sign a contract with us. Instead of Europe, you will conduct the monitoring. We also reached a serious agreement. Such a capacity, let's say, will be lost overnight. Fortunately, during the interview I had, Dr. Aref, the First Vice President, wrote a letter to the Head of the Administrative Affairs Organization and the Minister of Agricultural Jihad, asking them to pay attention.

Scientific associations and universities raised objections, I hope it will be returned, my request to the president was to withdraw this resolution and if necessary, work on it again. This resolution has brought us into a fight that we did not think about. Despite the many flaws in the Ministry of the Interior, 40 years of sanctions were the least of the country's officials' concerns about food security, the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad is keeping its head down and doing its job, and we are so upset that you do not need to worry about ensuring food security for the country. From this side, we want to interfere and I was very surprised. If the officials listen to the interview later, I ask them to finish these hands.

The Golden Age of Natural Resources

Darvish: One of our studies in the natural resources sector was to enhance the authority of the Natural Resources Authority, as a strategic organization that is responsible for the country's food security. The golden age of the country's natural resources dates back to the period when the Ministry of Natural Resources existed. Nasser Golsorkhi was the Minister of Natural Resources. The best laws that were passed date back to that period. Then, suddenly, in a government that we had been waiting for a long time because Mr. Pezzekian talked a lot about the environment, he warned for the first time of the danger of subsidence and said that it is impossible for a plan to happen in my government that is anti-environmental. And after such a government, such a resolution comes out. It is very disappointing.

Jalili: Let's leave it with good intentions. I think there is a lack of knowledge in these issues.

Darvish: It is not bad to defend the Natural Resources Authority.

Jalili: I think the Ministry did not play us too much. They probably defined an approach. Everyone says we were not informed. The Minister himself wrote a letter requesting that the resolution be canceled. A number of developed countries and countries that are large and They are close to us from developed countries such as the United States, Canada, Spain, France, Australia, Japan or countries like us. I have studied Brazil, Pakistan, India, Indonesia. In all these countries, natural resources are a completely independent and key issue or there is a ministry there. If it is within the Ministry of Agriculture, it is an independent organization. We have also gone through these steps.

The Ministry of Natural Resources existed from 1946 to 1950. Unfortunately, in 1950, it was a wrong decision to abolish the ministry. Recently, we wrote a letter to the president with several elites and officials of the country, such as Dr. Zand and Kalantari, and said that they should be gathered in the form of an organization and accepted because they were ministries. If you mess this up, you may have to create 4 more ministries in 4 years. That is, they do not know this information. Why have they reached this point?

Where did the imbalance crisis come from?

Darvish: The country is facing an imbalance crisis. I think the reason we are facing the imbalance crisis of water and energy resources is the same contemptuous view that the government and the government have towards the sector in charge of the country. Natural resources help the country's economy like a stable foreign exchange fund. Unfortunately, not only have we not seen it as a serious twelfth ally in the country's economy, but the tweet that the head of the Employment Affairs Organization sent congratulated us for making the government agile. However, if it is time to make the agility and maintenance of the institutions that were there or not, it does not matter. There are other institutions that are in a higher order. Don't you think that what we are facing and that we have even reached a point where our people are worried about drinking water, is due to this inaction? Jalili: Sometimes we define the wrong priorities for ourselves. The Ministry of Agricultural Jihad, the Environment Organization, the Ministry of Energy discuss the issue of water, or for example, the Ministry of Oil and the Ministry of Energy discuss energy. We spend all our time on where to remove and where to add, whatever we think the government is after? Every day we move forward, a new imbalance is added, and we will reach a mental imbalance that will make us doubt our own sanity.

Darvish: I think this is the first problem. If this problem were solved, we would not have water and energy imbalances.

Jalili: Iran is a country with a lot of potential and capacity. I myself go to imbalances and super challenges in my field of work, especially in natural resources. My goal is not to magnify and raise these super challenges. My goal is to provide solutions. There is no super challenge in Iran without a solution. For water, which Dr. Zand and I recently wrote an article in the Iranian Nature magazine about the water crisis. We have provided strategic solutions on a macro and sectoral scale and in the micro-watershed. These ways are not complicated. It is easy to solve the water issue. Or you were referring to natural resources. One of the structures in the body of natural resources in the world, every country that is struggling to maintain and manage natural resources healthily, has protective guards. In the Natural Resources Organization, the protective guard, I think, is more of a show than a protective guard. The presence of protective forces in the country's natural environment is serious for two reasons: they protect nature and are a safe place for those who want to visit nature. A person who goes to the mountains to climb will get into trouble there.

One of the very serious sectors that can save Iran from serious imbalance is tourism. Closing Iran to tourists has caused enemy countries like Israel and America to take advantage of it. While millions of tourists enter the country, global public opinion does not allow this. They say that Iran is not a country that you can easily attack. Trump once made an incorrect statement about some of Iran's cultural centers, meaning that the other side felt that Iran was an island, while if international tourists came to Iran, no one could attack and threaten Iran so easily. While strengthening the country's natural resources organization means creating a platform for accepting tourists, replacing the oil economy, and eliminating dependence on water. When we think about these issues, the other side says that the natural resources sector is one of the government's priority sectors. First, I will form the structure. It is necessary to have a ministry. If not, the ministry has no traction. I will form a powerful natural resources organization. It is not two, two, or four. We must examine all aspects and reach a logical decision.

Botanical Garden under budget cut

Darvish: Do you remember that during Ahmadinejad's administration, the budget for the Botanical Garden was eliminated? We were worried that it would face threats. Large camps were formed. People had memories of their existence in that beautiful garden. What you are saying is that if we had helped boost tourism, increased cultural interactions, and allowed millions of people to see Iran, we would never have faced such isolation.

Jalili: I used to be present in the garden in a very unknown way among the people to see people's reactions. I saw three ladies sitting on a bench with the executive director of the garden and they were complimenting me. I was eager to listen to what they had to say. I went to serve them and said, "Ladies, excuse me for disturbing you." They said that they were talking about the greatness of the Botanical Garden. They said that the three of us were old classmates. Now one of us is in Canada. We get together every now and then. We told our friends that this garden we have doesn't have Canada either, and that this honor should be ours. Or sometimes I would go without people, someone would step on the sidewalk, and visitors would quickly rush in, saying that this is not a park. Since the garden was reopened in 2015, it has been nearly 9 years, and more than two million people have visited this garden. When the Army Cooperative, which had started construction, reacted, two groups, one was the Majles Research Center, and the other was the Tehran Prosecutor's Office, prepared a report. It was interesting. I was reading the Majles report. It said that biodiversity and genetic diversity, not to mention added value from the tourism point of view, have created an added value from the tourism point of view. If tourism were opened, it would be 500 million dollars annually. What can we compare it to? Compare it with the vast nature of Greater Iran, the Zagros forests, the Lut Desert, the forests of the north, the mountainous regions of Iran.

Isfahan; Civilization Sacrificed by Industry

Darvish: Consider Isfahan, the land of the living river, which has an extraordinary diversity in natural, historical and cultural fields, which is why it is called half the world and has always generated wealth from tourism. Based on this backward, petrified, unwise thinking, that province, which could still create a strong cultural transformation from tourism, has been transformed into an unsustainable industrial and agricultural hub. The Zayandeh Rood River has disappeared, land subsidence has increased, and Isfahan has become an opportunity migrant. We are facing a serious crisis in central Iran because there is a thinking in Isfahan province that says that the prosperity of Islamic tourism is in danger.

Jalili: In a meeting, a number of members of the Isfahan City Council were present. I said, to be honest, Isfahan has two faces: you should accept Isfahan as a civilization or you should accept Isfahan with industries and agriculture. I have concluded from the studies I have done that if you focus on industries and agriculture, Isfahan will have no water at all in a few years, while Isfahan will become the tourism hub of the Middle East. Isfahan Airport should have direct flights to the capitals of the world. Iran is a land that God is witness to. I don't think any country on earth has such a natural and cultural capacity. Sometimes historical monuments are located somewhere. Sometimes, apart from historical monuments, the living culture of Iranian society itself is diverse. Look at the Kurdistan region and its type of clothing and music. In Sistan and Baluchestan, it is different. We have ignored all the capacities. We say that if you activate the tourism economic sector, you can earn more than oil.

Development without plundering nature

Darvish: Without plundering

Jalili: Without touching natural resources and causing pollution. The tourism economic sector itself is inherently justice-oriented, meaning the money tourists bring is distributed on the streets

Darvish: If you hear that the Eiffel Tower in Paris has been attacked, not only the French will be upset, but everyone who has a souvenir photo next to the Eiffel Tower will be upset.

Jalili: When, in this situation, especially the Western media write articles against Iran and try to blacken it, they say that Iranian civilization was not simply an empire, this empire was the foundation of human civilization. For the first time, Iran introduced the issue of provinces, central currency, common coin money, and the postal system. Iranians introduced highways to the world. When I study some scientific sources in the world about Iran, everyone says that Iran is a civilized country that belongs to humanity, not only to the Iranian people.

We went to Tabriz with professors from the University of England to visit the poet's grave. The professors from England asked me who this poet was. I said, "He was in the Tabriz cave 800 years ago. We can buy his book." I introduced about ten poets to them. Among them, the doctor said, "We have shaken the world with Shakespeare."

Darvish: Today's generation cannot read Shakespeare's poetry, but we still read the Shahnameh.

Jalili: It's really a shame. I tell the country's officials to please wake up. If these capacities are activated, the enemies will not dare to look at our country from the left. All the imbalances will disappear in two years. The country will be in normal conditions.

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Endemic species for all people

Darvish: You have introduced species in your books that are not found anywhere else like in Iran, each of which creates credibility for a library.

Jalili: It is interesting that at the institute, there are groups of botanists, professors and great scientists. They started. Dr. Jamzad and I saw in 2016 that we had to write the real data. Nearly 45 botanists from all over the country worked based on two indicators that track biodiversity discussions in the world, which collected data for 5 years. I stepped aside from the beginning of Mr. Raisi's administration. I wrote the project on the data. I worked on this data for about three years, ten hours a day. It is interesting that biodiversity hotspots existed in places that I had been working on for thirty years, which was strange to me. The Hezar Mountain in Kerman did not come to mind, the Hezar Mosque in Khorasan, Arasbaran, Arasbaran, as if they had been placed in the middle of all the famous geography when looking at geographical species. You see, Arasbaran is a natural and amazing botanical garden. If you look at Tehran, all the botanical gardens that have been collecting plants for about 200 years, from 50 kilometers from Karaj to Firoozkooh, were one of the important centers of speciation in this area of ​​Tehran, which unfortunately have been destroyed due to urban development. I was surprised by this capacity of our country and was horrified by the neglect.

Darvish: Again, as it should be and maybe you didn't have the facilities, maybe if you had more facilities and a complete team and could observe all of Iran, the number of endemic species would have increased.

Jalili: Two projects, the first phase of which has been completed, are called Flora of Iran's Alpine Conditions, meaning about a dozen mountains above 2,700 meters in height, and are defined as alpine and semi-alpine. You know, if climate change happens, one of the studies we had done was that it would be warmer at these altitudes. Most species that are in alpine conditions will disappear. There have been two periods where about 30-40 botanists have been focused on re-examining alpine conditions. We are sure that new species will be found.

Alborz and Zagros; the heart of Iran's speciation

Darvish: Mainly in the Alborz and Zagros ranges

Jalili: Even the individual mountains in the middle of Taftan, the first phase of which was 5 years old, have been completed. They are defining the second phase to study all mountains that are above 2,700 meters. The doctoral thesis of one of our good colleagues, Ms. Teymouri, was on the biodiversity of soil in deserts. We think that the desert is a wasteland. After years of study, we saw a world of diversity. We observed bacteria that only stabilize the desert soil. All bacteria stabilize the biological activity they do for years so that it does not lead to dust centers. With this machine, we go over these and destroy them in order to have a good time for two hours.

Darvish: It is because of the inefficiency of the national media and education that they have not introduced these.

Jalili: People are not guilty. The war also showed that people love their country, although America and Israel were happy that people would welcome them. One of the civilized behaviors that showed what a civilized society is like when they say. You must have read that a Turkish journalist from one of the networks comes to the border to film Iran's exit from the border, then observes that it is the opposite, people return to their country, the prolongation of a civilization creates a latent culture that shows itself at the right time, if you give these people the opportunity and participation and strengthen the republic, all problems can be solved by the people. If you tell them what the nature and soil of the desert are like, it is a center of biodiversity that we have not yet recognized, naturally their behavior will change.

Darvish: When you say that you have introduced more than 2500 endemic species, please explain more to the general audience. Our land is in a part of the world's dry belt. Do you know of any other land that has such an extraordinary diversity of species?

Jalili: Iran is a subtropical to temperate region and has two ranges of mountainous regions. Although the mountains are caused by tectonic movements, they cause earthquakes in the land, but they are a great blessing. If they were not for the mountainous regions, we would be absolute deserts. As a result, the geographical range in terms of latitude and altitude above sea level and climatic diversity has provided a high capacity for species diversity. The species are located in a range of altitudes between the alpine and the demantari. There are 816 species of species, 600 of which are endemic and a few are endemic.

Europe vs. Iran

Darvish: How many are there in the entire continent of Europe?

Jalili: One of the main centers of plant speciation in the world is Iran. The study of Dr. Masoumi, who has an article, shows this. Within this ecosystem, other plant species are also exclusive, which are mainly in this area. In the institute where I had focused more, we reached a point where science in the world has gone astray. Mainly, rangeland science is equal to pasture management. It is a huge astray that we have taken from the world. It is not ours.

Darvish: Like knowing the value of a tree by its wood and fruit.

Jalili: We studied the data and said that there is perhaps 90 percent of the capacity for genetic diversity in pastures. At the institute, we said that pasture management should be included in the education stage at the university, in research and implementation, from pasture management science to the science of ecosystems. We are such a land in the dry belt

Darvish: We are truly unique

Jalili: We cannot say that we are unique, Turkey

Darvish: Turkey is higher than our latitude, it is not in the dry belt

Jalili: It is located between Iran, Turan and Europe, it has a very high diversity, it is a good country in this respect, but in this situation we are a unique country, I ask the government officials and those who write this organization in particular, please come down from the devil's donkey, act wisely and take natural resources seriously, you manage the water crisis and manage the fine dust, the field will open for other serious economic activities, let's make the country a more serious and lively civilization again, let the world be proud of us, not only Iranians but also the world should say I saw such a country, which is a source of pride for me.

A book that has no budget

Darvish: You have just prepared such a valuable book, you have spent years of your life on it, we are facing a disaster in the natural resources department that cannot print it. This is very sad.

Jalili: We have written a book on plant diversity in the National Botanical Garden of Iran. With the groundwater of the Central Plateau of Iran, all three books are key topics for the country. We are looking for you, God, to help us print this book so that it can be the basis for decision-making regarding the country's natural resources.

Astronomical costs of water transfer

Darvish: A country that wants to spend 350 thousand billion tomans to transfer 1200 kilometers of water from the Sea of ​​Oman to Mashhad, if they give credit to these studies, there would be no need for such transfers.

Jalili: The water crisis is discussed on different scales. In metropolises like Tehran, the crises are localized. How do advanced countries like the United States and China solve these problems? California is small, Iran is small. In the city of Los Angeles, they have installed a small part of the wastewater treatment plant system. The slogan of this facility is that from the toilet to the faucet. In the documentary program, they said that the toilet and shower faucet you use will be in this facility six hours later.

Recycling; The way that worked

Darvish: Recycling is complete, where it is by the Pacific Ocean

Jalili: They were purified in 6 phases, all of them had their taps together. The first tap, which showed that you thought the toilet was coming, the last tap, took the water in a glass and gave it to the reporter. She reluctantly pushed her hand away. The gentleman drank the water himself and said, "You are wrong. You have been drinking this water in Los Angeles for 11 years. That means it is delivered exactly six hours later, it is purified for six hours, and it is returned to the network 12 hours later." In the state of Michigan, the city of Chicago consumes 2.7 billion cubic meters of water. In Tehran, seasonal rivers have reached the rivers like a claw from nature. They do not purify the 2.7 billion and do not enter it into drinking water, but release it into these rivers. All this water is injected into the aquifer.

If they had spent $350 million, which is nothing but $250 million, to establish facilities in Mashhad and the surrounding cities and to purify and inject the water that Mashhad and its surroundings consume into the aquifer, there would be no need to transport water.

Mashhad and the Waste of Drinking Water

Darvish: Mashhad needs 12,000 liters per second of drinking water. Its treatment plant complex purifies a thousand liters per second and releases 11,000 liters raw into the river without purification, and 7,000 hectares of agricultural land are being irrigated.

Jalili: If I were in the position of the authorities, I would have put the first knowledge and technology I had to work on in Iran in water technology, either in desalinating seawater or in purifying sewage and industrial effluent.

I would have examined the situation of the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf. They take about 10 billion 300 million cubic meters of water from the sea annually. You know, the water there has 39 grams of salt per liter, although it also has environmental consequences that we should address elsewhere. From Bandar Abbas to Gwadar, there is a tremendous potential for industrializing Iran and developing tourism.

The future of Iran; Population transfer?

Darvish: Population transfer

Jalili: We could settle 50 million people on the coast of the Sea of ​​Oman by desalinizing seawater

Darvish: Desalination technology is much more environmentally friendly and uses solar energy

Jalili: The main part of the Sea of ​​Oman, which is the border, you know, the Persian Gulf has an average depth of 50 meters, the Sea of ​​Oman is 3,000 meters deep, which means that we can harvest it, no problem

Non-water-based economy; Necessity of the future

Darvish: New cities and the government's new approach should be based on an economy that is not water-based, except for Dubai, how are Doha hosting the world's largest sporting event, the World Cup? If we are to create cities that are hubs for green startup trade and tourism, the north of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of ​​Oman are much more attractive areas than the south. This wealth is extraordinary.

Jalili: I had an article that we have one of the most sloppy economies in the world. If we don't get out of this sloppy state, we won't redefine our priorities. Day by day, more challenges and imbalances will arise.

Darvish: In one sentence, how can we cure sloppy state?

Jalili: Sloppy state is that we must define the country and development based on national interests. When you define national interests, it gathers you from everywhere. We no longer want to solve the world's problems.

Darvish: If you become powerful yourself, you will unconsciously affect others.

Jalili: We were present at the second Earth Summit in South Africa with the representative of Jihad and the government. I was giving a speech at the ministry. I prepared a letter. Mansour Hojjati, the Minister of Jihad and Agriculture, asked me to prepare a letter. He sent the letter to Khatami with his own signature. I said that globalization is happening. This globalization is not based on a predetermined plan. It creates itself. Those who have something serious to say and have a good behavioral model will definitely have a listening ear. If you had a strong economic country, you would be capable, justice would be established, there would be no imbalances, you would be a role model for all the people of the Middle East and all countries.

Exports; the path to the country's independence

Darvish: You were exporting

Jalili: This is how your idea is exported. In the cases of the 12-day war, our missile capacity, the whole world is counting on us. They are making Iran a missile superpower, if we do this in other issues where we have the capacity, instead of the people of the Middle East setting another place as a model, they will set our country as a model. The media is at your disposal, spend more time on these issues, you just don't want to enlighten the people, you need to enlighten the officials so that they can make rational and serious decisions.

Full file of Abdi Media's conversation with Adel Jalili, ecologist