Over 2,000 hectares of forest burned in Iran’s Kurdistan province this year: Official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Over 2,000 hectares of forest have been burned as a result of forest fires in Iran’s Kurdistan province this year, a local official in the province said on Saturday, with rights groups criticizing the lack of government response.

Bihzad Sharifipour, the director of natural resources in Kurdistan’s Sanandaj city, said that 2,240 hectares of forest have been lost due to fires since January, identifying the lack of resources and budget to protect the province’s environment as the main cause of the rapid spread of the fires.

“We need about 150 billion Iranian rials [$306 million] annually, but only 30 billion was allocated during the last visit of the Iranian president, of which 7 billion was given,” Sharifipour said, adding that the provided budget is not enough to cover the cost of fire extinguishers.

Kurdistan province’s Mariwan has witnessed frequent forest fires over the past two months, with hundreds of volunteers arriving from different cities of Iran’s western Kurdish areas (Rojhelat) to help put out the fires while many others raised funds to help with the process.

Local activists have blamed the Iranian military for the fires, saying that they often set up bases outside of the cities and burn surrounding forests under the pretext of security concerns, but do not act to control the fires and end up burning large areas of land.

A report by Hengaw Human Rights Organization earlier this month blamed the Iranian government for failing to control the fires and said that authorities routinely arrest environmentalists trying to extinguish the flames.

Over 2,000 hectares of forest burned in Iran’s Kurdistan province this year: Official

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