When Development is a Step Backward

The following is a link to an article entitled Iran: Environment Takes a Back Seat to Development Plans from an online news analysis site:

http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1078370.html

The author, Vahid Sepehri, uses the example of the Kavir National Park in north-central Iran to illustrate how development in the interest of oil and an industrial economy is endangering safe spaces and the environment they protect. Kavir is home to several rare native and endangered species including the Persian leopard and the Asiatic cheetah. The area was declared a national park and biosphere reserve in 1976 by the Iranian monarchy.

Since then, however, two oil projects have been pushing for expansion, which would entail blasting, digging wells, and the building of pipelines and saltwater canals underground through the Kavir. As of now, construction is awaiting approval, but the threat still looms.

These actions would threaten the park not only in disturbance, but it would also ruin the soil and thus vegetation because “the injection of 4 billion cubic meters of gas under the national park would force large amounts of saltwater to the surface.” In an area that is already arid, this is extremely dangerous.

Kavir National Park is only a case study in the many hazards posed to the environment in Iran. It has been noted that the environment has already experienced degradation for military development. Several dams, chemical plants, and refineries have already been constructed, all of which “might generate jobs and money for some, but it would destroy the local environment and lead to long-term and more generalized poverty and sickness for locals.” This quote by Etemad-i Melli points to the human factor that is connected to environmental degradation. There has been a rise in birth defects in Iran, which have been traced to pollution from oil and production effluent into the Persian Gulf.

Once again, all of these negative environmental impacts are a result of so-called development. This may be an assumption, but I feel that it is a commonly held opinion in our class that military expansion is not necessarily progress. At what point does the security of a country overrule food security for its people? So often, the military and production of oil are used to protect a nation’s geographical and economic place, but if the actual land and resources are destroyed through environmental degradation, doesn’t this seem counter intuitive?