Semnan Province Determined to Develop Green Spaces

Governor General of Semnan Province in the meeting with Head of FRWO said that” considering the fact that 80 percent of Semnan province is located in desert zone and the very low green space per capita at national level, emphasized the exploitation of touristic potential of dry-lands parallel to development and expansion of forests in the province”.

In this meeting which was held at the FRWO Headquarters on Monday, the Governor General of Semnan, Alireza Ashnagar added that Semnan province has 350,000 hectares of forest which is far from adequate considering the vast area of province.

He added "the geographical location and vicinity of Semnan province to nine provinces of Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Yazd, Golestan, Mazandaran as well as Razavi, North and South Khorasans, boost the need for combating desertification and rehabilitation of the region that can in turn, reduce the threats to these adjacent  metropolitan areas and other parts of the country.

In another part of his remarks, he highlighted the overexploitation of water resources and said that more than 70 percent of water resources are being harvested in the province which doubles the importance of IWM interventions.

He referred to the key functions of IWM interventions such as flood management, sedimentation and erosion control and requested the Head of FRWO to allocate more budgets from the National Development Fund for IWM projects to Semnan province.

In this meeting, Khalil Aghaee Head of FRWO said: “The implementation of IWM is in line with the sustainability of natural resources that benefit ecosystem both in wet and dry seasons”.

It is noteworthy that some 218 billion RLs have been allocated for IWM projects in the province last year, and it is anticipated that some 600 billion RLs from National Development Fund plus 200 billion RLs co- financing from provincial resources is earmarked for IWM projects.