Plantation of 14 Million Seedlings in 432 Sites

The General Tree-Planting Movement for Greener Homeland starts with the presence of high ranking officials of ministry of agriculture, Qom governorate and wide participation of people and media in Qom on Thursday 5^th December 2019.

According to FRWO’s website, Dr. Shahbazi said in gathering held in Qom city on the occasion of "General Tree-Planting Movement for Greener Homeland" in Thursday 5^th December 2019, that based on this initiative it is scheduled to plant 14 million seedlings in 42 thousand hectares of lands in 432 sites in 31 provinces throughout the country.

In this meeting, Dr. Shahbazi said due to climatic changes and new pattern of precipitations in the country we have started a new annual tree- planting initiative from 5^th December 2019 rather than 5^th March 2020 based on recommendations of science and research bodies. Therefore, the annual tree- planting ceremony starts from 5^th December 2019 and joins 5^th March 2020 this year as a new model for coming years.  

He added that the Supreme Leader has paid special attention to natural resources and IWM programs in the recent years and emphasized the establishment of a national movement. FRWO is at the forefront of this wave and have had various contacts with national authorities to mobilize all national capacities in this direction. He said we need about 120 billion m³ of precipitation form total 400 billion m³ we receive annually. Therefore, IWM aims to harvest rainwater in an optimum manner for plantation activities.

In this meeting, Deputy for management and resource development of Agriculture Ministry said soil conservation is prerequisite for development the environment. He praised the FRWO plantations especially in central and desert provinces and added that soil has far less been in the center of attention nowadays. Fortunately, natural resources management is among the very disciplines that give the utmost attention to soil quality and erosion control. Hopefully, the budget earmarked from National Development Fund for masilileh IWM project as the result of the joint follow-up of the ministry and FRWO, has been allocated and the flood spreading project is completed.

The coordination deputy for development projects of Qom governorate also thanked FRWO and expressed hope that the projects would continue as scheduled. He added natural resources and environment is central to sustainable development.