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Nowruz

Nowruz Award for Mohammad Ali Inanloo

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inanlo3The prize for the best filmmaker and artist of the year 2016, in the category of natural heritage and environment goes posthumously, to Mr. Mohammad Ali Inanloo who was an expert and producer of documentaries on environment and natural heritage of Iran and one of the pioneers of educating people on ecotourism, Mr. Inanloo’s activities also included the followings:
– Forty years of systematic activities in introducing the exceptional environment of his country, Iran  to his compatriots.
– Producing numerous TV programs that entailed his vast travels to many unknown corners of his country.
– Ceaseless enthusiasm to attract the attention of his audience to issues and problems inflicting Iranian natural heritage and environment.
–  Pioneering in setting up ecotourism classes with the aim of teaching the correct methods of enjoying and dealing with the environment.

Mr. Inanloo worked on Iranian nature and environment for 40 years. His perseverance and enthusiasm to introduce the subject and encourage the appreciation of nature was unsurpassed. His travels in Iran covered 2 million kilometers, resulting in numerous documentaries, programs and articles. Although his activities were mostly centered in the government radio and TV, he never participated in anti-culture and anti-national programs and confined his cooperation to teaching and propagating his beloved subject of nature and environment.

Nowruz Award for Abangaan NGO

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AbanganlogoAbangaan NGO:   The recipient of “The Nowruz Prize” for the best civil society of the year 2016, in the category of “Natural Heritage”, for:

– Establishing itself as a non-governmental institution, dedicated to the preservation of natural heritage, environment, and especially water resources of Iran.
– Gathering a number of American- Canadian- and European-Iranian young activists working on the above subjects.
– Striving to elevate and expand public education on such subjects through setting up discussions among experts and professionals.
– Production of educational and informative videos on relevant subjects.

It is not a secret that there are grim and critical conditions for natural heritage in Iran There is also a continued intentional and non-intentional negligence of relevant authorities, who also block activist and NGOs to continue their work for the conservation of environment and national heritage. The situation has resulted in the formation of Abangaan NGO outside Iran by a number of experts and people who are interested in the field of environmental conservation and in bringing this subject to the attention of the public through optimal use of the available media.  Although this organization is less than one year old, the members of this NGO have excelled in their cause despite the lack of financial and technical facilities.
Within the span of last six months, Abangaan NGO has been able to interview more than 20 experts, researchers in the field of environment who come from academic, political, cultural and artistic walks of life. These interviews have been compiled in a number of 26 minutes videos and have been broadcasted in Ofogh-e-Iran TV programs and later posted on the internet. Being of educational and analytical benefits, the videos have already attracted a vast number of audiences from all over the world and especially from Iran.
Their excellent work so far deserves much appreciation.

sam_khosravifardSam Khosravifard (Msc. in Environmental management), is a PhD candidate in the field of natural resources science at University of Twente, in the Netherlands. Mr. Khosravifard has been working as a journalist since 1996, focusing on environmental issues of Iran. He has published more than one thousand articles and analytical reports regarding Iran’s natural and environmental issues. He is author of two books; “Persian Lion” and “Natural Heritage of Iran”, published by the Cultural Research Bureau.
As a consultant biologist, Mr. Khosravifard collaborated with “Conservation of Asiatic Cheetah and Its Habitats Project”. Through collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and The Department of Environment of Iran, he participated in the preparation of the second phase of the project. Mr. Khosravifard also taught ecotourism and wildlife/nature photography in specialized institutions.
During the last ten years, he has been working with more than five consulting companies in order to prepare environmental reports and documentations for decision makers of Iran.
Mr. Khosravifard is an experienced wildlife photographer. He also directed a documentary about the presence of raccoons in Iran titled: “Raccoon; an Intrusive Guest in Iran”. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada and is working on another documentary about the history of implementation of modern conservation in Iran.
kambiz_ghaforiMr. Kambiz Ghafuri, an Iranian journalist living in Finland, has worked with and written reports for international media such as: Finnish Journal of Foreign Affairs (a publication of Finnish Institute of International Affairs),  Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), AJAM TV in USA, Radio Zamaneh, Radio Kucheh. He is a member of Association of Iranian Journalists, SFJ, Suomen Freelance Journalistit (Finland), Association of European Journalists. In addition to producing independent TV programs and writing articles and participating in interviews relevant to political and social issues, he has been talking to important personalities in the Oral History Project, as well as covering artistic activities of Scandinavian societies such as the alternative documentary festival of Tempo in Sweden.
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Iranian New Year Named: The Celebration of Mahasti Ganjavi

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mahsati-ganjavi-wchvEvery year, on the advent of each Iranian New Year (which coincides with the beginning of spring), Pasargad Heritage Foundation (PHF) designates a name for the coming year that signifies a certain aspect of its mission. PHF is an organization established a decade ago outside Iran with the aim of preserving Iranian cultural heritage and has observed this name designation for the last 10 years.  The main purpose is to emphasize on the priceless values of the ancient cultural heritage of Iran that are exposed to constant destruction due to intentional and accidental negligence of the relevant authorities in that country.

The coming New Year of the Iranian calendar has been named as the “Year of Mahasti Ganjavi”, to commemorate a Farsi-speaking courageous poetess of 900 years ago who thought and spoke about the very subject matters that are expressed today by great anti-discrimination women of our times.

She was born in Ganje, an Iranian city that now is located in Azerbaijan Republic, before the language of that area was turned into Turkish. Thus, she is now being introduced as an Azerbaijani poetess whereas all her poetry is in Farsi.

Unfortunately, all through history, religious zealots have banned the spread and publication of her poetry in as many ways as possible. And then, by the advent of the Islamic Republic in Iran, she has been officially been recognized as a non-Iranian poet and the Islamic government has not accepted even to co-apply, together with Azerbaijanis, for the registration of her name as a poetess of Farsi literature in the Intangible Heritage Index of UNESCO.

Proposed by Pasargad Heritage Foundation