The role of ethics in environmental protection and sustainable geographical development: A case study of Mazandaran province

The environment plays a vital role in sustaining human life and must be protected byall means.In Iran, legal solutions as well as coercive measures have not been able toprevent the destruction of the environment, so that the statistics show the worryingsituation of environmental degradation in Iran.Mazandaran province is one of therichest environmental resources in Iran, but it is in a red situation in terms ofenvironmental degradation.The main question of this article is whether moralframeworks can help protect the environment and sustainable geographicaldevelopment in Mazandaran province? The method of this article is descriptive-analytical.The findings of the paper show that ethics and moral frameworks based onIslam and the Shiite religion and efforts to extract and teach the ethical teachings of environmental protection can guarantee internal performance to protect theenvironment.On the other hand, given the dominance of the development view ofgovernment policy and the concern for job creation and all-round economic development, the best way to protect the environment is to empower the people themselves by strengthening moral foundations.