Almost no living wetlands remain in Iran’s Fars province, a situation that environmental experts say is worsening public health and driving up cancer rates, the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) reported on Saturday.
Bakhtegan, once the province’s largest wetland, has been dry for over 14 years, ILNA said in its report. “Except for a very small area, no water is visible.”
An environmental activist described the situation of Iran’s wetlands as deeply alarming. “The condition of wetlands is now very dire, and it seems that no specific body has taken responsibility for them,” Sirus Zare said in remarks cited by ILNA.
Dried wetlands have become new sources of dust storms, he warned. “Wetlands are naturally low-lying areas that have accumulated pollutants over thousands of years. Once dry, they turn into active dust centers that spread toxic particles,” he said.
Nationwide ecological collapse
The report linked the crisis to Iran’s overuse of groundwater and mismanaged water projects that have reduced the natural flow to lakes and wetlands nationwide. As a result, nine major wetlands dried up by the end of the last water year.
The Karun River, Iran’s longest waterway at more than 950 kilometers, is also nearing an environmental disaster, according to the report.
Further north, Lake Urmia has nearly disappeared after years of warnings from environmentalists. The lake now holds only about 100 million cubic meters of saline water spread over 200 square kilometers, with an average depth of less than half a meter. Experts say the lake is “practically dead” and may evaporate completely within days.
Expanding water crisis
Even Gilan province, one of Iran’s rainiest regions, faces shrinking wetlands. Gilan’s governor, Hadi Heghshenas, said in September that “If no solution is found, Anzali Wetland — an international ecosystem — will fall silent completely.”
On October 10, coinciding with the annual Zayandeh-Roud River Day, concerns mounted over the critical state of the river in the central Isfahan province. Lawmaker Abbas Moghtadaei blamed the Energy Ministry for failures in managing the crisis, saying land subsidence, dust storms, and shortages of drinking and irrigation water stem from mismanagement.
Environmentalists warned that ignoring water rights reflects systemic neglect of national water laws and deepening inequities in resource management.
“Marriage and having children must be considered part of a person’s résumé,” Amirhossein Bankipour, a member of parliament from Isfahan, said on Saturday, according to state media. “A woman who marries should receive more points, and a woman who gives birth should gain even more, because she is helping prevent a population crisis.”
Bankipour’s remarks come amid a government push to raise fertility under the 2021 Youthful Population and Family Support Act, which restricts access to abortions and contraceptives while providing loans, subsidies, and tax breaks for couples. The law aims to lift the fertility rate to 2.5 children per woman, but official data show it remains at about 1.6, far below the target.
Despite the incentives, as Iran’s economy has sharply deteriorated, marriage and raising children have become harder for many families. Inflation has eroded purchasing power, and basic expenses such as food, rent, and education have soared.
Health impact of restrictive population laws
While the government has linked population growth to national strength, its policies have also created new social pressures. The Shargh daily reported in September that restrictions on prenatal screening and abortion have doubled the rate of Down syndrome births, from 1.2% to 2.9% since the law took effect. Legal procedures for pregnancy termination now require both medical and judicial approval, even in cases of confirmed fetal abnormalities.
Public health experts have warned that the tightening of reproductive laws, coupled with deepening economic hardship, has fueled a growing underground abortion market and worsened inequality. At the same time, official figures show Iran spends only 2.9 percent of GDP on education, compared to the global average of 4.4 percent, contributing to what commentators describe as a widening social gap between poor and wealthy families.
Lawmaker defends incentives despite limited results
Bankipour said parliament has sought to address the economic dimension by increasing marriage loans and expanding housing programs for young couples. However, years of inflation and declining real wages have limited their impact.
He said the new proposal would help redirect social incentives toward family building. “Until now, degrees and job skills have determined status,” he said. “We need to tell the younger generation that forming a family and raising children are themselves national achievements that deserve recognition.”
Brew said sanctions continue to hurt, yet no longer have the power to change behavior.
“Sanctions have had an impact, there’s no question,” he said. “But the idea that they can be used to change state behavior… I think that age is coming to an end.”
He described a global oil market now split in two. Alongside the legal, dollar-based system, a small handful of heavily sanctioned exporters—Iran, Russia and Venezuela—accounts for more than 10 percent of global production and holds over a third of the world’s proven reserves.
Much of that trade runs through China, sustained by barter-style deals, deferred contracts and non-dollar payments that keep Iranian crude flowing but eat into returns.
A recent Wall Street Journal investigation found that Beijing has been funnelling billions to Tehran through non-cash arrangements, offsetting payments against goods and services — evidence, Brew said, of how sophisticated the workaround economy has become.
Slipping sanctions dragnet
Enforcement, Brew said, has become a game of cat and mouse with the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which oversees and enforces sanctions.
“The officers in OFAC know what they’re doing,” he said, “but the problem is resources.” “By the time the sanctions have been drafted, reviewed, announced and implemented, those who are involved in the trade will shut down operations and move somewhere else.”
Tankers and front companies routinely reflag, rename or falsify locations to stay ahead of sanctions. Contracts are passed through layers of brokers across the Persian Gulf, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.
Even when OFAC catches up, others take their place. On the Chinese side, Brew said, the reaction is often indifference.
“If there are Chinese businessmen who learned they’ve been sanctioned by OFAC, they say, okay, that’s something … They don’t care because they don’t do business in dollars.”
Pressure profiteers
Brew emphasized that the pressure inside Iran is real: inflation, a collapsing currency, shrinking purchasing power and stalled foreign investment.
Yet the same sanctions have also produced a class of insiders who profit from them.
Politically connected intermediaries and security-linked firms have turned sanctions into a business model, giving them every reason to keep the restrictions in place.
The case of Babak Zanjani—an Iranian oligarch accused of withholding billions in oil revenue—remains a symbol of how power and profit merged in the sanctions era.
GPS off
How the oil moves tells its own story.
Tankers load crude at Karg Island, transfer it between ships in the Persian Gulf or Southeast Asia, switch off tracking systems, change names and flags and eventually offload at ports in China’s Shandong province.
Some cargoes sit in “floating storage” for weeks while contracts and cover stories are arranged.
On paper, the oil often appears to come from Malaysia or the United Arab Emirates.
The financial trail is even harder to trace, routed through brokers in Hong Kong, the Gulf, and mainland China, and sometimes settled through goods, services, or investments rather than money.
An Iran International investigation this week revealed that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Armed Forces General Staff have sought Chinese weapons as payment for oil.
The limit of sanctions
Brew said sanctions now serve to contain Iran rather than transform it.
The sanctions still cut off hard currency and investment and have left the country reliant on one customer—China—but they no longer deliver the political results Washington once hoped for.
The United States can still weaken Iran, he said, but not change it. “Sanctions keep Iran in a box,” Brew said. “They work to contain, not to transform.”
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