Environmental Initiatives in Contemporary Iran

Abstract

Iran's environmental crisis is one of the severest in the world. At the same time, environmental initiatives there at both the government and private levels are unique not only among Muslim countries, but in the developing world in general. Iran's constitution contains the strongest environmental statement of any contemporary national charter. During the 1990s environmental NGOs proliferated in Iran, and have generally worked well with the Islamic government. As a result Iran has seen effective grassroots activism on environmental issues as well as some very progressive government initiatives. Since overthrowing its monarchy in 1979 Iran has striven to play a leadership role among non-aligned developing nations. The current president, Mohammad Khatami, has established a Center for the Dialogue of Civilizations, partly in response to Harvard professor Samuel Huntington's contentious clash of civilizations theory. Against this backdrop of foreign policy, Iran's environmental initiatives offer some compelling alternative visions to Western models of environmental policy for developing countries.