Targeting our cultural heritage is complicit with the ruling regime in Iran.

Dear President Trump,
You are the only U.S. president who has explicitly opposed the Iranian regime for the past 40 years. You have repeatedly stated your support for the people of Iran and the unique culture of Iran. You and your important government figures have repeatedly stated that the United States of America stands with the Iranian people in these difficult and critical times in which the Iranian regime has imposed upon the Iranian people.
Even the Iranian-Americans living in the U.S, who did not vote for you three years ago, appreciate the U.S. support for the Iranian people who have suffered so much under this oppressive Iranian regime.
Unfortunately, however, your recent remarks about “targeting 52 sites in Iran which also include Iranian cultural heritage sites” is shocking to all Iranians who care deeply about that country yet oppose the regime.
Mr. President, Iranians have been witnessing the destruction of their unique and great cultural and historical heritage for 40 years by the Islamic Republic’s oppressive culture and regime. For over 40 years, we—the lovers of Iran’s cultural and historical heritage—have reported and asked for the assistance of all the cultural centers of different countries, including the United States, the United Nations, and UNESCO, for assistance in stopping the destruction of beautiful historical and cultural sites and monuments by the ruling Iranian regime. These heritage sites not only belong to the people of Iran but also belong to humanity and the global community. Now, would you want to destroy these invaluable, priceless historical and cultural heritage sites to retaliate for the actions of the ruling regime in Iran?
President Trump, while your recent remarks have been of great concern for all the lovers of world cultural heritage, they have unfortunately made the heads of the Iranian regime very happy. They have tried their best to destroy Iran’s cultural, environmental, and historical heritage over the last 40 years and any destruction of these sites by anyone, for any reason, will be of complete complicity with the ruling regime in Iran.
Sincerely yours
Shokooh Mirzadegi
Executive Officer of Pasargad Heritage Foundation
January 5, 2020

It has been reported by the Chinese news outlets, three tourists were sentenced to prison and have been fined 6 million yuan (about 859,900 U.S. dollars) in total for causing damage to a world heritage site in east. China’s Jiangxi Province.
The three tourists from neighboring Zhejiang Province drilled 26 holes in a 128-meter-tall rock on Sanqing Mountain, a world natural heritage site, and used ropes to climb to the top of the rock on April 15, 2017, according to the site’s administration committee and the local authorities.
The rock, known as the “Giant Python of the Mountain,” is of scientific and aesthetic significance which archeologists believe has evolved over the last 300 million years. The rock however has been reported to have poor stability and is only seven meters in diameter at the thinnest part.
Geological experts said the rock had sustained damage from the tourists’ drilling.
One tourist surnamed Zhang was sentenced to one year and a tourist surnamed Mao was sentenced to six months. The total fine will be used to protect and restore ecological environment.
The Sanqingshan UNESCO Global Geopark in Jiangxi Province was added to the World Heritage List in April 2019, and is famous for the juxtaposition of granite stones and vegetation.

As far back as a decade ago, the Iranian and international newspapers were reporting on the drought and desertification in Iran. In 2015, the New York Times reported on the problem in an article titled: “The Empty River of Life”
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/world/middleeast/iran-our-man-in-tehran.html. Now almost at the beginning of the second decade of the 21 st century the desertification across Iran has worsened so much that the consequences could have dire and irreparable consequences for the country. In a new report by Iran International, titled, “Desert Invasion across Iran”, that reality has been witnessed.
It has been reported that Khosrow Shahbazi, the head of Iranian Forest, Rangeland and
Watershed, at a meeting with the Governor of Gilan (a province in the north of Iran by the Caspian Sea) on December 1 st , 2019, stated that about one hundred million hectares of the country’s lands are subject to desertification.
Desertification is a process whereby the biological productivity or ability of the environment to support life such as vegetation is greatly diminished. The scientists have stated that this gradual and drastic decrease in productivity may be due to several factors such as climate change, deforestation, unhealthy grazing, poverty, political instability, unstable irrigation, and inadequate management of water resources (surface and groundwater) or a combination of these factors.
This has happened in many areas of the world including in some countries in Africa. What is for certain based on many reports as well as evidence the environmental policies of Iranian agencies have had major impact on these catastrophic environmental changes.
Iran is a country with varied natural landscapes composed of arid and dry desert ecosystems, as well as plains, grasslands, and forests. However, even the northern forests have been drastically changing. According to Mohammad Darwish, a member of the faculty of forests and rangelands, the forests have been changing due to forest tree disease, man-made deforestation under the pretext of development, increased soil erosion, flooding and land subsidence. Other factors include wood harvesting, the establishment of industrial and mining units, animal husbandry.
De-forestation is more severe in Golestan province, and northern forests follow the path that Zagros began decades ago, despite warnings given by the scientists and environmentalists.
Acoording to Isa Callanti, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, between 2 to 5 hectares of Zagros forests are drying out annually, but the situation is much worse in rangelands, prairies and drier areas.
The environmentalists believe that dams (built in recent years) are the main culprit in many parts of Iran. For example, the dam built on Zohreh River has been the cause of drying of Hendijan plain. In Sistan and Baluchistan, the sandstorms and the influx of sand have greatly increased due to desertification and the dam on the Helmand River in Afghanistan has been drying up the lakes Sistan and Baluchistan. In another part of the country, excessive grazing and drought has caused the gradual death of semi-green rangelands in Isfahan province. According to statistics available, over 6,000 villages in Iran have been affected by this phenomenon since the past 5 years, reflecting the severity of desertification in Iran.
The rapidly advancing desertification phenomenon has received little attention or consideration from the Iranian governmental agencies while they still continue with poor environmental management decisions which are now negatively and drastically impacting the country with dire environmental consequences.