Iranians Protest Government Negligence As Lake Urmia Dries Up
Iranians held a demonstration in the northwestern city of Tabriz on Saturday to protest mismanagement that has led to the disappearance of Lake Urmia.
Iranians held a demonstration in the northwestern city of Tabriz on Saturday to protest mismanagement that has led to the disappearance of Lake Urmia.
The protesters gathered outside the provincial office of Iran’s Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization, demanding the reopening of dams on rivers that feed the lake to resuscitate the dying hypersaline body of water.
Located between the provinces of East Azarbaijan and West Azarbaijan in northwestern Iran, Lake Urmia (Orumiyeh) was the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth-largest saltwater lake on Earth with an original surface area of 5,200 square kilometers in the 1970s, or 2,000 square miles. It had shrunk to 700 sq km by 2013. The lake began shrinking in the 1980s due to water mismanagement and climate change.
During the demonstration, people chanted slogans such as "Lake Urmia is thirsty" and "Break the dams, fill Lake Urmia." In July 2022, a protest was also held and police arrested an unknown number of activists.
Once a thriving tourist hotspot with bustling hotels lining its shores and commercial ferries plying its waters, the lake currently hovers on the brink of utter disappearance. This dire situation is the result of a combination of factors, including prolonged droughts, excessive water consumption by local communities, and the ill-conceived construction of dams along its tributaries, all exacerbated by the regime's neglectful approach.
Experts say excessive and illegal groundwater extraction and using the water of the once bountiful Zarrineh Rud − which feeds Urmia Lake − for irrigating apple trees have both contributed to the lake shrinking by nearly 95 percent in volume over the past 20 years. In 2021 alone, more than 100,000 tons of apples of the province’s production went to waste.
Recent images capturing the last gasps of the lake depict a stark portrayal of its complete extinction and the severe environmental repercussions in the region. Nevertheless, regime officials still defend their actions with several phantasmagorical visions.
Ali Salajegheh, a vice president and the head of Iran's Department of Environment Protection, said during his visit to the region that “We hope that with substantial autumn rainfall, the situation of Lake Urmia will improve.”
His claims came a day after Ramezan Sharif, the spokesperson of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), described the public concern over the dying lake as an attempt by the critics of the regime to "undermine the authority of the Islamic Republic.” He claimed that "over the past 800 years, several lakes like Lake Urmia have dried up around the world, and these specific climate changes are not unique to Iran."
Fars news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, quoted Salman Zaker – representative of the city of Orumiyeh in the parliament -- as saying on Saturday that the private sector can play a constructive role in saving the lake. "This is a demand shared by the public at large, and the government should engage the private sector in this endeavor. Thousands of residents of the region are eager to contribute to saving Lake Urmia by participating in the water transfer project from the Caspian Sea,” he said.
His remarks showed the attitude of regime insiders who make grandiose and baseless statements. Transferring water from the Caspian Sea hundreds of kilometers away would be a herculean task.
“Approximately 28 solutions have been considered for the revival of Lake Urmia," he said, claiming that “The results of the measures taken to revive Lake Urmia may not yet be tangibly evident... However, these actions can gradually lead to positive outcomes for the lake.”
Etemad, one of Tehran's prominent reformist dailies, said in an opinion piece on Saturday that studies indicate even the release of water from all upstream dams cannot revive Lake Urmia. Citing a study by researchers at Tehran’s Sharif University, the article said, "The water level of Lake Urmia on June 3, 2023, reached its lowest recorded level since measurements began, and now the volume of water is even lower than in 2015, the year when the lake's condition was announced as critical.”
In May, the former head of Iran's Environment Protection Organization warned that four million Iranians risk displacement if Lake Urmia dries up. “Transferring the residents of Tabriz to another place requires $500 billion while the cost of reviving the lake is about one billion dollars,” Issa Kalantari said, explaining that the salt dust would be unbearable for residents in Tabriz and its surrounding cities.
Last year, when the lake had shrunk by 95 percent, he said the fate of the Iranian regime is contingent on saving the lake. If the lake is not restored, it will have security consequences, and no government can survive in the country because it cannot withstand the flood of migration of millions of people who reside in the surrounding regions, he said.
The government of President Hassan Rouhani appropriated 150 trillion rials – in 2014 – equivalent to one billion dollars at the time - for a seven-year plan as well as another $10 million aid by Japan and some other pledges by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to save the lake. It is not clear whether or how the earmarked budgets were spent.
Farhikhtegan newspaper, affiliated with Ali Akbar Velayati, a close advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said in an article published Saturday that a parliamentary committee in charge of the bill has eliminated the only possible benefit of the bill aimed at reducing police confrontations with people.
The main idea of the bill was to introduce a new way for hijab enforcement in the streets that would not lead to violent confrontation between police and people, reminiscent of the death of Mahsa Amini that ignited nationwide protests last September, shaking the foundations of the clerical regime. It put the emphasis on non-policing measures, rather than hijab patrols who confront the people on the streets.
The bill, which was sent to the Islamic Consultative Assembly by the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi, initially was comprised of only 15 articles. Now undergoing its final deliberations, it has become more unwieldy with 70 articles while the parliament has decided to discuss it without an open session in fear of further backlash.
According to lawmaker Ahmad Naderi, a member of the parliament's presidium, a joint committee will make “the decision on the bill's passage into law discreetly and without being presented in the open session of the parliament.”
“The bill, fraught with suspicions and flaws both from a legal and societal perspective, has become a topic of national discussion,” said Farhikhtegan daily. “Now even more alarming news is being heard,” added the paper, explaining that lawmaker Amirhossein Bankipour has made the hijab patrols by police as the only viable option to crush the civil disobedience movement that is translated into society as women unveiling in public. “This means going back to square one,” said the article.
The uprising last September has made it increasingly difficult for the clerical regime to enforce the mandatory Islamic dress code. Since the beginning of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement, tens of thousands of girls and women have shed their compulsory hijab. The regime seeks to criminalize hijab defiance, but no branch of the government wants to be solely responsible for complications and the risk of social backlash.
According to Farhikhtegan newspaper, the bill has evolved to the point where instead of rectifying the existing issues, its new addendums will further exacerbate the situation.
In recent weeks, the regime has intensified measures to intimidate people against defying hijab such as shutting down restaurants, cafes, small businesses and even online shops. The regime has also summoned students and has moved to make university lectures online in fear of renewed protests. However, the common belief is still the same: Regime cannot retain control of women’s dress code on streets.
Veteran hardliner lawmaker Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani said that to keep its head above water, the regime must act promptly. “Every day, the situation worsens, thus requiring preventive actions; otherwise, we risk entering irrecoverable circumstances. Due to inaction, defiance against hijab has deteriorated further, and if we don't stop its progress, it will sweep us away,” he said, justifying the haste and secrecy in finalizing the hijab bill.
Responding to Haji-Deligani, political analyst Ali-Hossein Ghazizadeh said, “The regime is rushing to secretly approve the bill. This bill represents the last arrow in the quiver of the regime to confront the women who have come to make history. Mark my word! This bill does not work; the flood that has been unleashed will sweep you all away,” he said in a tweet.
Reformist activist Saeed Shariati quipped on a television debate earlier in the week that it is not "religious minorities" but the "irreligious majority" who do not adhere to the regime's interpretation of Islamic laws.
The report was released on Thursday, a day after the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Managing Director Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr – a deputy oil minister -- claimed that the country's daily oil production would surge by 250,000 barrels to reach 3.5 million barrels by the end of summer, meaning that the current figure stands at 3.25 million barrels.
However, the latest OPEC statistics suggest that Iran's daily oil production amounts to only 2.828 million barrels, indicating a substantial gap of 422,000 barrels with the Islamic Republic’s figure.
Furthermore, OPEC's new figures highlight that Iran's oil production experienced an 11% growth in the first seven months of the current year, yet the country's oil price has plummeted by over 24%. Iran's daily oil production increased by 274,000 barrels until July, still falling short by a million barrels compared to the reported 3.8 million barrels it used to produce prior to sanctions imposed by the United States.
The backdrop of this production surge lies in the aftermath of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, which saw the lifting of international sanctions on Iran and a subsequent increase in revenues. Iran's oil revenues temporarily soared to $66 billion in 2017. However, this upward trajectory was disrupted after the United States withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018, which led to renewed sanctions that intensified a year later.
As a result, Iran's oil exports faced a significant decline, falling to between $15 - $20 billion by 2020. The tide began to turn towards the close of that year after the election of US President Joe Biden, who expressed his intention to reinstate the JCPOA. China, in response, embarked on a trajectory of more oil imports from Iran.
Presently, China remains the main customers of the Iranian oil. Meanwhile, data from Kepler, a data analytics company that also tracks oil tankers, indicates that Iran's average daily oil and gas condensate exports to China during the first seven months of 2023 have been hovering around one million barrels per day, up from roughly 325,000 bpd in 2020 and just 160,000 bpd in August 2019, in the wake of tightened US sanctions.
While oil has been trading at around 75-82 dollars in the past several months, Iran International reported in December that Tehran provides huge discounts to China, charging as little as $37 per barrel. A report by The Wall Street Journal in July said Iran is exporting the highest amount of crude oil in five years, but it offers discounts of up to $30 per barrel.
No matter how many buyers or how much trade Iran manages to secure for its exports, it faces serious obstacles in bringing in the revenues and money transfers due to US banking sanctions, Mohammad-Hossein Malaek, who served as Tehran’s envoy for four years under former president Mohammad Khatami, told the Iranian Labour News Agency earlier in August.
The former envoy highlighted China’s purchase of Iranian oil never stopped no matter the status of US and international sanctions on the Islamic Republic, but the country faces serious obstacles to pay Iran for its crude, pushing Beijing to barter goods and services to with ally.