Environmental research

Darehshahr Township located in the vicinity of Kabirkouh in Zagros region, is surrounded by 59,500 ha of forest and 656,000 ha of rangelands. Grazing capacity of the rangeland is estimated for 7 months for 24,000 livestock. However, 73,000 livestock are directly and indirectly depended on the rangeland to graze which is 3 times as its capacity. In addition 12% increase in population of the residents in the past ten years and recent rise in fuel price has increased dependency of locals on the natural resources for cooking and heating purposes. Dependency of residents on natural resources has imposed considerable damage to the environment; 1,000 ha of forest have been cut and 6,000 ha of the rangeland are destroyed. It is estimated that 5,000 trees including Oak, Almond and other local species are annually cut. The project activities are: Holding awareness raising workshops to promote general knowledge of local people about their environment Introducing alternative livelihoods to increase income of the families including production of herbal medicine and bee keeping and marketing the products Optimizing livestock breeding activities to reduce pressure on the rangelands Improve coppicing activities through workshops for beneficiaries Establishing a local development fund to encourage and support small income generating activities Holding workshops for students for familiarizing them with the importance of environment Planting local species of trees and other plants to rehabilitating the plant coverage Optimizing fuel consumption through introducing high efficiency cooking and heating equipment Publishing lessons learned and project results in forms of booklet and multimedia

Iran