TEHRAN – The Director-General of the Rangelands Affairs Office at the Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization of Iran has announced a target of restoring 20 million hectares of rangeland in the Seventh Development Plan.

According to IRNA, Tarahom Behzad added that a five-year plan has been developed to achieve this goal, outlining the specific contributions of each province.

He said that this five-year plan includes significant measures such as grazing management and regulation across 15 million hectares, biological operations on one million hectares, biomechanical operations on 1.25 million hectares, the development of medicinal plants on 300,000 hectares, and protection and fencing of 2.45 million hectares.

Behzad emphasized that approximately 27 trillion tomans (Iranian currency) is required to implement the five-year rangeland restoration plan within the framework of the Seventh Development Plan.

He noted that in the first year of the Seventh Plan, two million hectares of rangeland management projects, two million hectares of management transfer for rangeland projects, 100,000 hectares of biological operations, 150,000 hectares of biomechanical operations, 40,000 hectares of medicinal plant development, and grazing management, grazing permit control, and nomadic settlement management across 15 million hectares, along with 400,000 hectares of management projects, are planned.

Behzad estimated that nearly 1,850 billion tomans are needed to achieve and implement the rangeland restoration programs in the first year.