Tehran's per capita green area will increase to the international standard of nine meters once the projects are accomplished.

About 30,000 hectares of land in Tehran suburbs were afforested during the past eight months, managing director of the Tehran Municipality's Parks and Green Areas Organization said, IRNA reported.
Ali Mohammad Mokhtari said the project had been implemented in the area allocated to the city's green belt project, adding another 20,000 hectares in the city were to be afforested.
He said the first phase of the project was over, recalling that the cabinet's Commission for Infrastructure Industries had endorsed 50,000 hectares of land to be tree-planted during the second phase last year.
"More than 150 local parks are planned in the Tehran this year (to end March 2005)," he said. "The municipality has attempted to plant the 1,800-meter heights in northern Tehran in a bid to discourage construction of residential units there."
Mokhtari said Tehran's per capita green area would increase to the international standard of nine meters from the present six meters, once the projects are accomplished.
"TM is ready to free-plant national lands within the framework of the green belt project provided it is approved by the Forests, Rangeland and Watershed Organization," he said.

West Azarbaijan Department of Environment will implement a comprehensive scheme to reduce and prevent further pollution of four major rivers in the province.
Director general of the department, Kiumars Kalantari, made the remark adding that the plan would cover the Mahabad Chai, Shahr Chai, Simineh Roud and Zarrineh Roud rivers.
"The executive organizations have been assigned and the project will get underway once the funds are secured next year (to start March 2005)," he stated.
"These rivers have a high ecological value and their water is used for drinking purposes. That is why they have been selected from among 14 permanent rivers in the province."
He was quoted by ISNA as saying that sewage and residue emitted into the rivers from rural and urban households, as well as industrial and agricultural units are the primary source of pollution.
Accelerating the operations to complete the wastewater treatment center, collecting and treating surface waters, implementing the plan on management of riverbeds and banks, collecting the wastewater from farms, establishing incinerators and recycling units are the most important measures proposed within the framework of the national plan to prevent river pollution, he said.
"Four of the 56 major polluted rivers identified nationwide are in West Azarbaijan," he noted.

A new compost production line with a daily processing capacity of 1,000 tons will soon be launched in Tehran, managing director of Recycling Organization, Abolfazl Ebrahimi, said, ILNA wrote.
"The required technology and machinery have been supplied and the line would go on stream within a month," he stated. "A daily 2,000 tons of Tehran garbage are recycled in Kahrizak compost plant. With the new line being launched, 3,000 tons of garbage will be processed on a daily basis."
Formerly, between 250 and 400 tons of garbage were daily converted into compost due to mismanagement and a failure to exploit the facility efficiently, which has increased almost tenfold at present, he asserted.
According to Ebrahimi, private sector potentials have been used to revitalize the plant. Only 5,000 million rials were expended for a daily production of 2,000 tons of compost.

A view of Orumiyeh Lake

Lawmaker Javad Jahangir-Zadeh said destruction of Orumiyeh Lake is not related to construction of the Kalantari Bridge over it and that a decline in the level of inflowing water would be detrimental to the lake.
Fars news agency quoted him as further stating that the growing number of dams erected over rivers passing through East and West Azarbaijan and pouring into the lake increase the possibility of an environmental crisis in the ecosystem.
"People and executives in West Azarbaijan have for many years been insisting on the need for establishing a bridge connecting two sides of the lake for easing traffic and boosting public welfare," he recalled. "The feasibility studies for the project were carried out prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the executive studies were undertaken in the post-revolution era."
He explained that the province boasts high-quality farm products which must be swiftly transported to other parts of the country. This is one major reason why the bridge needs to be established.
The lawmaker gave assurances that the environmental impacts of the project would be minimal and said, "By adopting a proper water management system, part of the water stored behind dams can be released to feed the lake. The level of water in the lake has slumped to an alarmingly low level due to little precipitation and decline in the inflowing water. Local people both want a living and are concerned about the nature. It is the duty of executive and research centers to pay attention to both demands."

Transport, supply and transaction of wildlife without permits from the DoE is illegal.

Several individuals illegally vending wild birds in Tehran's Molavi Bazaar were detained, Farid Rezakhalji Olyaei, in charge of the Department of Environment's Public Relations Office said.
Talking to IRNA, "Last month, several partridges, sparrow hawks and squirrels were discovered in the pet market and released into their main habitats."
He explained that DoE had established a special inspection team to confront illegal vendors of wildlife. "The team inspect pet shops in the city at intervals," he noted.
As per the Hunting and Fishing Law, transport, supply and sale of wildlife without permits from the DoE is forbidden and the violators will be prosecuted accordingly.

Mass strandings are cyclical in nature and caused by predominant westerly winds increasing in strength every 12 years.

Rescuers succeeded Tuesday in saving most of the whales still stranded on beaches in Australia and New Zealand as scientists pinpointed cyclical weather patterns as a likely cause of increased beachings, AFP reported.
Some 23 of a 42-strong pod of whales that beached at Maria Island to the south of Australia's island state of Tasmania on Sunday were heading out to sea after a desperate rescue mission by about 80 volunteers.
The remaining 19 animals, identified as long-finned pilot whales, have died.
A mass beaching of whales and dolphins at King Island in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania on Sunday resulted in the deaths of 73 long-finned pilot whales and 25 bottlenose dolphins, the state's environment department said.
"We've had about 80 people on Maria Island, including volunteers, Parks and Wildlife Service staff and Marine Conservation staff all working on a major effort which saw 23 of the stranded animals successfully saved," environment department spokesman Warwick Brennan told AFP.
"They put large mats under the whales, dug trenches and gradually eased them into the water and supporting them while they became buoyant before moving them out to deeper water. "The latest reports are that the rescued whales haven't been sighted again at this stage, which is a really good outcome."
In New Zealand rescuers succeeded in returning to the sea 20 of the 21 pilot whales found alive on a beach near Whangamata, on the North Island's east coast, and put down the last one.
Up to 70 volunteers including Department of Conservation (DOC) staff kept the last of the live whales afloat until they were strong enough to swim away.
However, more than 50 of the pod of 73 whales, which lay undiscovered on isolated Opoutere beach until Monday, had died.
DOC area manager John Gaukrodger said there were no signs the refloated whales were returning to the beach.
The mass beaching of whales has long mystified scientists, but Tasmanian-based scientists believe weather patterns may be responsible.
Research by a team from the University of Tasmania's department of marine biology has shown that mass strandings are cyclical in nature and caused by predominant westerly winds increasing in strength every 12 years over the Southern Ocean.

Thailand has promised to return to Indonesia more than 100 smuggled orangutans used in controversial kickboxing bouts in Bangkok following pressure from wildlife groups and Jakarta officials, a conservationist said.
A Thai forestry police officer, General Swake Pinsinchai, visited the Animal Rescue Center in Indonesia's central Java city of Yogyakarta to inspect the country's preparedness to receive the apes, said Ferry Ardianto, the center's legal affairs head.
"The Thai officer assured us that they will return the orangutans as long as we cooperate," Ardianto said, adding that no date had been set for the repatriation.
Swake was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying that his visit to Indonesia showed his government was serious in its efforts to return the orangutans.
The Thai officer said the illicit trade in orangutans was a high-profile issue because it involved millions of baht and high-ranking officials.
Thailand had earlier promised to repatriate 50 of 115 smuggled orangutans in the first batch but claimed that some of the primates had died of illness, Ardianto said.
"We know it was a lie. Apparently there's some kind of a mafia there," Ardianto said.
The endangered apes had been used in controversial orangutan kickboxing shows at Bangkok's Safari World, which is at the center of an inquiry over claims it smuggled the animals from Borneo or Indonesia's Sumatra island.
The fights have now halted, DNA tests have begun to establish the animals' origin and the zoo's owner has been charged with illegally importing the orangutans.
About 1,000 orangutans are smuggled out of Indonesia each year, including 300 or more through Thailand, according to Edwin Wiek, director of Wildlife Friends of Thailand.

An Afghan gardener tends to his roses in a garden in Kabul.

Sprouting from the dust, adorning walled courtyards from Kabul to Kunduz to Kandahar, or stuffed down the barrels of rusting Kalashnikovs, roses have a special place in the heart of war-torn Afghanistan, where even the hardest Mujahedin profess a fondness for the blooms.
Through 25 years of war and drought, the hardy roses of Afghanistan never stopped growing. They climbed through the gardens of government buildings, the plush Kabuli villas of Arab fighters, and kept sprouting in the shattered remains of bombed homes long after their owners fled.
But with Taliban rulers busy fighting for most of the late 1990s, gardens fell into neglect and disrepair.
In the waves of joy that flowed from the collapse of the hardline regime in late 2001, Afghans rediscovered their gardens and a revival of roses swept the capital.
The roses were dying in the gardens of the presidential palace. President Hamid Karzai wasted little time after being named interim leader in ordering an overhaul. Three years on, the palace boasts one of the city's most carefully tended rose gardens.
For Mohammad Zahir, a bank employee who grows roses in his war-damaged backyard, the roses carry hope. Like many other Afghans, Zahir, 37, abandoned his interest in the roses during the early 1990s civil war and the subsequent Taliban regime.
In the past three years he has renewed attention to his backyard patch planting new seeds that flower into crimson, pink and yellow petals. "My rose garden was destroyed in the war. My brother died in the war," Zahir told AFP.
"My rose garden has recovered and is still as beautiful as if nothing had happened to it, but my brother never came back. War, God damn it," he whispered with tears streaking his face.
The love of roses, which burst into bloom in March and flower until chilly November, extends from ordinary Afghans to revered war heroes and feared warlords.
Roses may even play a small part in the fight against the crippling $3 billion opium industry. Farmers in the southeastern province of Nangarhar are being
urged to substitute opium poppies for roses and distil rose oil, a
key component of perfume, by planting 40,000 Bulgarian rose plants.
The oil-producing species were brought from Bulgaria by the German non-governmental organization Agro Action and the United Nations Development Program last month.
Widely reflected in proverbs and folk songs, roses are believed to have been discovered here centuries ago, when the country was a meeting point for east and west on the ancient silk route.
"May you have the beauty of a rose, but bloom for longer," an Afghan proverb says, often invoked when suitors present flowers to heir loved ones.

Harra forests in Qeshm Island, Hormuzgan province (IRNA Photo)