War heightens isolation of Iran’s scientists

The ongoing war in Iran, which began following a joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Feb. 28, has intensified the long-standing isolation of the country’s wildlife conservation community, Mongabay’s John Cannon reports. While the current war has directly hindered research and damaged educational facilities, conservationists and researchers said that decades of international sanctions and political disconnect had already crippled Iranian conservation efforts long before the first bombs fell this year. “Iran’s nature, Iranian conservationists and Iranian researchers have been isolated for a long time,” Iman Ebrahimi, deputy director of the Isfahan-based NGO AvayeBoom Bird Conservation Society, told Mongabay. “The war has made that isolation more visible, but it did not create it.” This isolation has restricted access to global funding, professional collaboration, and basic research tools such as reliable internet, academic journals and robust banking channels. AvayeBoom continues to monitor the conflict’s effect on critical habitats. During a brief ceasefire in April, the team documented at least 5,000 greater flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) at Maharloo Lake, a salt lake that was full of water at the time. Ebrahimi said industries and agricultural activities were possibly drawing less water from the lake. The nonprofit also works with local communities around the Arjan wetland to protect bird species like the ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea). The wetland is part of the UNESCO-listed Arjan and Parishan Biosphere Reserve, in southwestern Iran, home to thousands of species, but also illegal bird hunting. Ebrahimi expressed concern about researchers who are forced to leave the country due to a lack of support. “I’m really worried about extinction — of conservationists,” Ebrahimi said. Iranian scientists also face persecution by their own government. On July 1, Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) conservationists, Houman Jowkar and Sepideh Kashani, were rearrested by security forces, along with Kashani’s sister, Sima, after being previously released from prison. They had first been arrested in 2018 on charges of allegedly using camera traps to spy on Iran’s missile program. The environmental stakes of the war extend to marine ecosystems as well, according to a letter in Science. Potential oil spills in the Strait of Hormuz could have “severe and serious consequences” for dugongs (Dugong dugon) and other marine life, according to study coauthor Ning Wang, deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea at Hainan University in China. To prevent the total collapse of Iranian science, Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, an economics professor at Marburg University in Germany, and his colleague have proposed a “humanitarian corridor for science” to provide fellowships, grants, and streamlined resource access to besieged researchers. “The aim is to prevent collective punishment of researchers and students,” Farzanegan said. Ebrahimi noted that such a corridor would be helpful. “I don’t think we have fully accepted that we cannot ignore some parts of the world and still claim to protect nature globally,” he said. Read the full story by John Cannon here. Banner image: Conservationists with AvayeBoom survey the wetland. Image courtesy of AvayeBoom Bird Conservation Society.