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Water exhibits various politico-economic dynamic. Water scarcity can lead to conflicts, and it lies at the core of Iran's environmental crises. The literature on Iran's water crisis indicates the effects of this issue in terms of multidimensional environmental degradation, community disintegration, and state-society and intercommunal conflict. Approximately 28 million of Iran's 85 million residents reside in water-stressed areas, a situation identified as 'water bankruptcy'. The water shortage is experienced differently across the country. The plateau's central regions, home to Iran's major industries, are where the worst water deficit is occurring. However, regions with abundant water resources have also been impacted. These regions – known as 'donor basins' – due to intensive and disproportional inter-basin water transfer and other engineering interventions deployed by the Government to deal with the water shortage of the central regions, suffer from a different form of water crisis. A condition of asymmetrical and conflictual power relations between the state and subaltern communities in Iran's peripheral regions has been created. This paper argues that this constitutes environmental racism, characterised by multilayered impoverishment and unsustainable development among communities in the donor regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on recent political developments in Rojhelat (Eastern/Iranian Kurdistan), focusing on the activities of Rojhelat's leading political parties. This study argues that the existing situation in the area is a product mainly of the shift in Rojhelat's mainstream political organisation, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, in its political and military approach to the Kurdish movement in Iran, popularly known as Rasan-i Rojhelat (the revival/sudden rise of Eastern Kurdistan). This has triggered a new, high level of conflict between Kurds and the Islamic Republic of Iran since 2015. Since the announcement of the Rasan, tit-for-tat clashes between Kurdish Peshmerga/guerrilla units and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have been witnessed across Rojhelat. Analysis of the Kurdish question in Rojhelat reveals this development as multifaceted and complex, involving multiple actors and activities such as insurgency and collective protest from Kurdish civil society. This article focuses on two main developments: the methods and practices deployed by the Kurdish political parties of Rojhelat following the Rasan, and the sudden announcement of negotiations between representatives of the Iranian government and of four of Rojhelat's political parties from 27-28 July 2019 in Oslo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iranian Kurdistan (a region referred to by the Kurds as Rojhelat/East Kurdistan), which possesses a large variety of minerals, oil reserves, dense forests, and massive surface and underground water resources, has for decades supplied the economic, agricultural, and industrial sectors in Iran, mainly benefiting the development of the central parts of the country and bringing significant income to the state. This has occurred while the Kurdish region remains among the most economically underdeveloped and deprived areas of Iran. The Iranian state's economic and developmental approach to Kurdistan's natural resources, and the mechanisms of extractions and exploitation of these resources, have resulted in extensive environmental degradation, affecting the public health in the Kurdish region, and not least de-development and further underdevelopment in this region. Taking into account the extent of extraction and use of Kurdistan's natural resources reveals the Kurdish-state relation as an internal coreperipheral relationship, resulting in the centre's destruction of the natural environment and exploitation of the natural resources of the periphery. This paper sheds light on the Iranian state's economic and developmental activities, with a focus on water resources in the Kurdish region and the consequences of their use on the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Similarly to other places around the globe, Kurdistan has its environmental challenges, some of which are climate change-related and others of which are more local and specific. Nevertheless, in both cases, Kurdish environmental activists, organised in environmental NGOs, are the protectors of Kurdistan's natural environment. The study focuses on the emergence and objectives of environmental activism in Rojhelat/Eastern Kurdistan, arguing that the growth of environmental activism as NGOs is a nascent trend in Rojhelat, and requires an in-depth study of its various aspects. The research aims to conceptualise the Kurdish environmental movement and investigate the socio-political and environmental context in Rojhelat. This study is inspired by the concept of "subaltern environmentalism", articulating environmental activism as a platform deployed by marginalised communities in their response to intentional environmental discrimination by political and economic elites. Specific focus is placed on the NGO Chya Green Association, and its evolution, activity and discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 1990s, Iranian Kurdistan has hosted a wide range of NGOs, engaging in different sociocultural activities. Within this development, establishing environmental associations has been a noteworthy trend, to the extent that almost every city of Iranian Kurdistan has its own environmental society. Even though Kurdish environmental societies have been established according to Iranian law and regulations, conducting environmental activities has been shown to be a risky affair, resulting in imprisonment, assassination and other unpredictable consequences for activists. This paper argues that the Iranian government exercises a securitised approach to environmentalism in the country's Kurdistan region. This study investigates the factors underlying the securitisation of Kurdish environmentalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]