Rio+20 Preparatory Meeting Held

The Rio+20 Third National Preparatory Meeting was held at the Amir Kabir University (AKU). Focusing on natural resources, agriculture, and fisheries activities the meeting was co-chaired by the Department of Environment (DOE) and the SRBIAU officials and participated by environmental experts, the SRBIAU Office of Public Relations reported.  

 Inaugurating the meeting the Chancellor of Amir Kabir University, Dr. Rahaei emphasized the importance of sustainable development (SD) in research and educational activities and highlighted the considerable effort being made by the DOE  and the higher education sector towards this end. He informed on the establishment of a SD Unit at AKU tasked to formulate strategic plans for landscape development, modify consumption patterns, and  facilitate utilization of wind, hydro, and solar energies. He stressed the AKU long term objective as being the pioneer in SD in the country.  

The Director of SD National Committee Dr. Maknon briefed the audience on the objective of the meeting as being  a platform to discuss, dialogue  and draft a  national report for the  Rio + 20 Meeting focusing inter alia on green economy,  international environmental governance, industry, water, agriculture and energy.

Dr. Arjmandi representing the  SD Thematic Group at SRBIAU considered the loss of water resources, reduction of vegetation, and fragmentation of land as major challenges to food security, poverty alleviation, rural employment  and environment protection. The long-term strategies proposed by him included decreasing pressure on nature, increasing water productivity,  pest control, and efficient  utilization of fertilizer and water resources.

The Director of Agricultural Jihad Department of SD, Dr. Miraki provide  an extensive brief on the general condition of agriculture in Iran focusing on the challenges such as large number of  small land owners , insufficient education , low productivity, sustenance farming, industrial pollution, climate change, micro dusts,  and rural-urban migration. He felt that green productivity, EIA, increase in recycling, reduction of energy consumption, alternative clean technologies and Green Economy are amongst the managerial strategies to be adopted by the governments for the environmental protection agencies.  

A dialogue ensued focusing on challenges, achievements and what needs to be done bearing in mind the economic and environmental aspects and  importance of the natural resources including agriculture, forest and rangeland.