Association of Citizens Civil Rights Protection
It can’t be longer treated the “environment” as a Common issue on the national agenda.
In the coming years, water will be bring the fire of battle.
Researchers have considered Middle East as one of the most water scarce regions of the world. In their view, this area is more prone than any other parts of the world to conflict and war over water resources.
Although the Middle East has 5% of the world’s population, but it possess only one percent of the water resources and this problem beside the common water resources between countries in the region, the region of the world has been made the war prone for water.
Iran has the joint river with five Iraq (Karun), Turkmenistan (Atrak), Azerbaijan and Armenia (ARAS) and Afghanistan (Helmand).
It is an area called the HAMOON on the border between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Afghanistan.
Most of this part of Iran is watered from the water of the Helmand River that comes from the East in Afghanistan.
The region has a history.
In during the past 150 years- When water was scarce, there was tension.
Today the area is under pressure due to lack of water once again.
This environmental disaster- in the past decade- it has been the discharge and leaving of many villages.
Now the houses are buried under the sands that the wind brought them from the dried ground of the plain. Wind wraps in noisy docks – in the empty markets of Fish and broken boats were scattered everywhere.
But this problem does not affect only on Iran.
Extensive the ravages of Afghanistan, the construction of Kajaki dam on Helmand River, have been followed the drying of the HAMOON lake that is the seventh International wetlands in the world and caused the interrupting of livelihood source of 4000 Sistani, the significant decrease of Sistan native birds, extinction of cattle-Sistani, the incidence of poverty and its subsequent insecurities, including drug trafficking activities, mass immigration of Sistani people to the northern areas of country and the increasing deterioration of Sistan crafts.
In satellite images of the South East in Iran, it can be seen dust and sand storms that come from the HAMOON.
On the other hand, except the possible problems with neighbors over water rights, Iran is geographically located in the area of the sharp divisions between the countries on resources and divided water. In the West of Iran, Iraq, the Syrian Arab Republic and Turkey are disputed over the water division of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
In the late decades and following the biased approach, some countries which have sought the unilateral use of water resources in the region and due to the severe changes in climate and the incidence of the frequent and prolonged droughts, air pollution has passed a growing trend.
One type of air pollutions that we are witnessing in the Middle East in recent years is the phenomenon of dust.
Researches of America Air Research Center, NOAA in Iraq have shown that the main cause of severe dust storms in Iran and desertification, especially in the eastern parts of Iraq is Algeria. The area is located near Baghdad and between the two rivers of Euphrates and Tigris and it has been numerous wetlands and lakes in the past.
But the ongoing droughts that started the years of1990-1991 along with the rainfall decrease and changes have been made in the water distributions of the Euphrates river by the governments of Syria, Turkey and Iraq have caused the spread of desert areas in the region and thus the substrate particles of lakes and wetlands that are extremely small, have located conveniently on the movement path of the north strong winds and those have been suspended.
This phenomenon has led that in many days of the year; Syria East, East Jordan, the centers of Iraq and Saudi Arabia and southern and western provinces of Iran are faced with the phenomenon of dust.
Satellite images provided by the regional environmental agency of Persian Gulf (Rapmy) also suggests that the source of much dusts is the same destroyed region in Mesopotamia that a time, not long ago it was the largest wetland in the Middle East and today it is a day and barren desert.
One of the major drying causes of lakes and wetlands in Iraq and Syria is caused by the massive Anatolia project or [GAP] in Turkey.
According to documents, the reservoirs capacity of existing dams and constructed on the Euphrates River in Turkey is more than one and a half times (more than 150%) of the total volume of the river. Meanwhile more than 98 percent water of Iraq and 86 percent of Syria water depend on Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
operation of Elisou dam will cause that Turkey prevents the entering of all 56 percent of the water volume that flowed from its territory to the Tigris and cause to become severe the processes such as desertification and drought in Iraq,
Construction of the dam started in 2006 and will end in 2019.
According to the being border of the dam in South East of Turkey and its construction on the Tigris River which flows Iraq soil ; it has also influenced the environment of Iran country. The dam requires the international law permits and satisfying the countries of Iran and Iraq, the Turkish government is building it without obtaining the legal permissions from international community.
Under international treaties, any country hasn’t right to interfere and capture the common rivers arbitrarily,
unless it can be obtained the permission of downstream countries.
Certainly, the “dust” is one of the most dangerous environmental threats in the Middle East countries that if one doesn’t think of a solution to remove it, certainly not in faraway time, it will impose high health care costs to governments involved in this phenomenon. Since this problem is a transnational phenomenon, it requires that these involved states take action in the field and they find a solution for removing it with the help of each other.
Perhaps in the not too distant past, to speak of a healthy environment didn’t supporters in international scientific circles a lot; but in recent decades, clarifying some dangerous aspects of environmental issues has strongly attracted public attention into itself and then the issue of “The right to clean air” is newer.
The right is one of the subsets of “the right to a healthy environment” and governments biased on the custom have recognized it often in the form of its basic rules and committed to ensuring this right.
But it should be noted that the issue of air pollution has often the border aspect.
That’s why the governments face against “right to a healthy environment” with the two commitments against two rightful owners: On the one hand there is the right of its citizens for having a healthy environment and in other word the creation prohibition of the loss and damage to another state nationals or in other words the prohibition of the harmful use of territory in international law.
Since the solution of environmental problems is needed the regional cooperation and by attention to the fact that basically these problems do not recognize borders, it is proposed that meanwhile to expedite and facilitate in the implementation of signed MOUs among neighboring countries than the draft codification, it must be acted a performance plan of multilateral cooperation among countries in the region to deal with dusts that can be effective in overcoming the phenomenon of dust.
Thus, according to what was said, it seems that cooperation and coordination of involved countries with the scourge of dusts including Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Iran as well as indirect effectiveness country namely Turkey in the framework of regional cooperation will be the most effective way to combat this phenomenon in where it would be respected the primary human rights, namely the right to a healthy human life.
Also according to acknowledged subjects, it must be said: it relates water security, environmental security and human security, all to each other. Human security is a term that the first, United Nations Development Programme considered it in 1994. This concept seeks to guarantee the security of the people – not just the countries security.
Thinking about the security traditionally, it has been an emphasis on national military power, which we believe that it should be abolished. Because the present century may build or destroy our environment.
The fact is that now it feels the vacuum of an international institution to be a reference for investigation to the environmental disputes of countries. Therefore, it is proposed that international institutions “UNER” are created and due to the important and special geography of Iran, the international headquarters of this institution puts in the country of Iran.
