Environmental Challenges Facing Zagros Forests

Examining the environmental challenges of natural resources is valuable from a management point of view and is of great importance due to clarifying the state of natural resources and its future path. Since the distant past, natural resources have been faced with many destructive factors due to the socio-economic relations of people with the forest, which has caused the forests and pastures to undergo serious destruction. Some of these destructive factors include under forest layer agriculture, extensive livestock grazing, indiscriminate cutting of trees, harvesting of none wood-products and coal mining projects, which are of human origin. Some other destructive factors that are the result of the events of the last decade in the area of Zagros forests include regional climate changes, drought, dust, desertification and expansion of deserts, tree decline and fires. The current article focuses on the environmental destructions resulting from the past exploitation of natural resources and from the events of the last decade, and has examined the resulting environmental challenges. The result of these investigations was the determination of the future environmental challenges of natural resources in the Zagros vegetation area. Based on this, basic measures to manage the challenges and prevent the quantitative and qualitative reduction of forests and their restoration include the correct implementation of livestock grazing and land use management, strengthening the regeneration of forest species with appropriate methods and environmental education at the level of schools, universities and media were suggested.