More than 1,000 environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are active in Iran, but over the past two decades, these groups have faced considerable challenges. Field reports and academic research identify a range of structural obstacles confronting environmental NGOs, including “persistent security pressures facing conservation activists, lack of job and financial security, exclusion from decision-making, and neglect by Iran’s Department of Environment.”
This field report tells the stories of three environmental activists who continue their work despite these obstacles. Shahreh, a member of an environmental NGO, describes her activism through a deep connection between womanhood and nature:
“Women and the environment are one and the same. Nature and women are both mothers: both nurture, both are caring, and both bring life into being. That is why I have worked in this field for so many years. I feel that part of my own being is connected to the environment, and that, as a small guardian of one corner of our city, I can protect it so that it remains healthy for our children.”
Criticising government policies, she says successive governments have contributed to environmental destruction through dam construction, the establishment of numerous factories that fail to meet environmental standards, and deforestation, a process whose consequences ultimately affect everyone, including the governments responsible.
According to Shahreh, environmental activists protest and urge the government to adopt sound policies that respect the environment and prevent future damage. But instead of listening to them, authorities threaten them with arrest or, as has happened to other environmental activists, accuse them of espionage. Shahreh says environmental proposals submitted by NGOs to government institutions routinely go unanswered:
“We have submitted many environmental projects to the Department of Environment, the Natural Resources Organisation and the municipality. At first, these institutions always say they will support us and hold meeting after meeting. But once they have taken their photographs with the NGOs and it is time to actually provide support and implement the projects, they stop responding to us.”
She stresses the importance of environmental education from an early age. Children, she says, need to be taught how to protect the environment from the very beginning. Her organisation provides such education in schools, with teachers and school administrators generally cooperating.
At times, however, the Education Ministry’s security offices obstruct their activities. These restrictions have become considerably more severe since 2023. As a result, the group tries to avoid even the slightest controversy for fear of losing access to the schools altogether.
Mobin, another member of an environmental NGO, says the treatment of civil society organisations changes depending on which government is in power:
“Every government deals with environmental NGOs differently. Rouhani, for example, used the slogan of restoring Lake Urmia and managed to attract the attention of many NGOs. But once he came to power, it was as though environmental issues no longer mattered to them, and they stopped paying any attention to NGOs. They have learned how to use us during election campaigns. Once the elections are over, they forget about us.”
He describes how projects are repeatedly delayed whenever administrations change. During Rouhani’s presidency, his organisation submitted a proposal to address an invasive species, but implementation was postponed after Ebrahim Raisi’s government came to power. Now, he says, officials are once again promising support. Yet Mobin says activists know that meaningful support will not come, and that they are left to fight alone, with their bare hands, to protect their environment. He also points to corruption within some institutions that claim to protect nature:
“On top of everything else, we are confronting organisations that claim to defend the environment while, behind the scenes, they are involved in illegal trafficking in trees and wildlife, or even the illegal appropriation of rangelands. They remain silent when powerful, well-connected people are involved and clear the way for them to plunder. And they resent us when we make enough noise to stand in their way.”
Mobin notes that the members of their NGO range from a nine-year-old child to activists as old as 63. Their work, he says, is invaluable because they sacrifice their time and parts of their personal lives to defend and protect the environment. Yet instead of supporting such dedicated and conscientious people, the state stands against them.
Behrouz remarks that his NGO’s licence has not been renewed for several years:
“They haven’t renewed our NGO’s licence for years. They won’t even allow us to work, let alone support us. They do not even reform the laws governing forest and wildlife rangers. What are we supposed to expect from them?
“When they have to choose between someone who destroys forests and someone who plants saplings, they side with the first. Between hunters and animal advocates, they side with the hunters. Between those of us who care about the environment and networks involved in environmental destruction, they support the destroyers. And what happens in the end? We all suffer the consequences.”
He continues:
“The environment is not a joke; this is a battle for survival. If we do not take care of it now, tomorrow there will be nothing we can do. They think we are enemies of this country and its land, when someone who truly cares about the environment has nothing but love inside them.
“Imagine people going with their bare hands to put out a forest fire and losing their lives doing it. Aren’t people like that extraordinary? Someone who has reached that level of social awareness—who is prepared to give their life to protect the environment so that it remains for future generations—if I were the government, I would wholeheartedly support and protect such people.”
Behrouz also speaks of the lack of attention given to forest fires in the Zagros Mountains. The Zagros forests have been burning for years, he says, yet the institutions responsible have developed no plan to address the problem. His organisation proposed a wildfire-prevention project, but every institution they approached said it had no budget, and none agreed to support the initiative.
Most assistance, he says, comes from private individuals. Government funding for NGOs, meanwhile, goes only to certain favoured organisations—those that always say yes to officials. According to Behrouz, state institutions even create obstacles for independent NGOs that finance their activities themselves, making their work still more difficult.
A 2025 study identifies “persistent security pressures facing conservation activists, lack of job and financial security, exclusion from decision-making, and neglect by the Department of Environment” as among the principal barriers confronting environmental NGOs.
Research conducted at the University of Tehran has likewise found that the number of environmental NGOs has a positive and statistically significant effect on indicators of local sustainable development. In practice, however, that impact is undermined by inconsistent government support and discriminatory allocation of funding.
Civil society organisations, which could serve as intermediaries between the authorities and the public on environmental issues, have instead been confined largely to activities such as “identifying environmental offences and halting development projects” because of “poor transparency and limited access to data.”
At the same time, NGOs themselves are gradually experiencing “exhaustion, friction and declining membership.” International organisations, including Amnesty International and ARTICLE 19, have also expressed concern over the detention of environmental activists in Iran.
Environmental activists in the country work “without job or financial security,” while the state not only fails to support them but responds in ways that are “often delayed, sometimes absent, and at times openly hostile.”