Abstract
This article explores the practices and discourses of environmental justice in Iranian Kurdistan/Rojhelat. In the face of unprecedented destruction of the natural environment, Kurdish people, including a significant number of women, organise themselves to defend ecosystems, lakes, rivers, and forests, making them part of the global environmental justice movement. Local communities face growing challenges such as water scarcity, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, exploitation of natural resources, and pollution, which directly affect their lives and health. Drawing on decolonial and critical perspectives of environmental justice studies, we ask how Kurdish activists understand the concepts of “justice” and “environment” in the context of discriminatory practices of the capitalist, patriarchal, and authoritarian Iranian state. Based on interviews and fieldwork in the region, this article argues that the global environmental justice movement should pay closer attention to the contextual realities of the subaltern, their aims and ideas related to nature, justice, and women empowerment.
1 Introduction
Environmental justice (EJ) movements have spread globally since their beginnings in the USA in the 1980s. They have broadened the scope of activism beyond nature conservation, the “cult of wilderness”1 or the quality-of-life concerns of the new social movements, demonstrating that environmentalism is a heterogeneous movement with diverse goals, values, strategies, and tactics. They have also changed the focus from the urban middle class towards other groups and localities. The integration of the concept of justice into environmentalism has opened up ways of understanding human-nature relations, multiple expressions of injustice, and the socio-political context in which they are embedded. How “justice” and “environment” are conceptualized by particular groups is now a topic of debate within the second generation of environmental justice (EJ) studies.
Our aim is to offer insights from Rojhelat/Iranian/Eastern Kurdistan and show how environmental activism intersects with the desire for self-governance, decolonization, gender equality, improved livelihoods, and recognition of cultural identity. Discussing how these issues directly relate to ecology, the paper intends to contribute to a more nuanced debate on environmental justice. Environmentalists in Rojhelat we interviewed, noted the important role of nature in shaping Kurdish identity, although they were naturally also conscious of significant recent changes in the ways of life and relations to the environment, as well as other dynamics shaped through politics, religion, language, and culture. We present our qualitative research findings on the environmental activism of Rojhelati Kurds and engage with second-generation EJ studies that seek to expand the analysis of people’s responses to nature-linked injustices and inequalities beyond the geographical, ideological, and conceptual boundaries prevalent in the literature, as well as highlight specific forms of marginalization in the global South.2 We draw attention to activism in politically repressive regimes, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), which acts as a colonial state (see below) that subjugates ethnic and religious minorities, particularly those who resist assimilation. Our work builds on the arguments of Bayat3 and Tilly4 to emphasise the particularities of activism in places where conventional political opportunity structures are closed.5
Studies of environmental activism in Iran have largely silenced minority voices,6 except for the recognition of “other significant distinctions within Iran’s environmental movement, such as (…) the capital versus provincial groups and priorities”.7 Hassaniyan suggests that the emergence of environmentalism in Iranian Kurdistan can be understood as a wider subaltern mobilization against discriminatory state practices and frames the latter as environmental racism.8 Our project investigated grassroots environmental activities and discourses across Rojhelat, and discusses them in relation to the global EJ movement. To contribute to the question “Is there a global EJM?”, we ask how Kurdish activists perceive the concepts of “justice” and “environment” in the context of authoritarian state policies and practices, which are understood as “colonial” by many of the activists we spoke with.9 We also pay attention to gendered oppression in a strongly heteronormative society, by examining how environmentalism has, for various reasons, become an important field for women empowerment.
We found that despite political oppression and marginalization, activists in Eastern Kurdistan have managed to create an informal forum for debate and action, resistance, and creative approaches to tackle environmental crises. Kurdish women increasingly participate in grassroots environmentalism, and through their involvement become more politically aware and active in other areas of life. We suggest reassessing, and thus decolonizing, the environment and justice concepts as they are understood in the mainstream EJ literature through the lenses of coloniality and indigeneity. First, Kurdish culture emphasises a deep connection with nature, providing inspiration for activism. Nature is viewed not merely as a resource for humans, but as an element to safeguard because of its values. The Earth and nature are viewed by many Kurds as divine or spiritual entities, an aspect largely absent in mainstream EJ discourses. Secondly, comprehending the activism of politically marginalized groups requires reconceptualizing justice in connection to ethnic identity, underdevelopment and poverty, and participation in decision-making. Lastly, we found a crucial gender dimension in the Kurdish understanding of justice. Women’s participation, although constrained, is an important part of the EJ movement and is, partly because of the recent attention for ecology by the PKK and related organisations, frequently viewed by Kurds in Rojhelat as a first step towards both emancipation and political activism.
The paper draws primarily on data from fieldwork conducted in July and August 2022 in Teheran, Sanandaj, Mariwan, Piranshahr, Kermanshah, and at Lake Urmia. It includes semi-structured interviews with Kurdish environmental activists along with materials published by environmental organizations and political parties engaged in the field of ecology in Rojhelat. Our objective was to explore emic understandings of socio-ecological processes, local people’s perspectives, and narratives concerning environmental issues. Due to the highly sensitive political context and state control, and the risks this implies for informants and researchers,10 we hide personal information to protect our interlocutors.11
The structure of this article is as follows. In the first section, we present a review of critical and decolonial approaches to EJ, highlighting current debates. Then we focus on discriminatory policies in Iran and the development of environmental activism in Rojhelat as a context for the study. The third section discusses grassroots understanding of EJ in Rojhelat as identified in our research. We conclude by relating the practices of activists to scholarship concerned with the decolonization and reformulation of frameworks for EJ.
2 “Second-Generation” Environmental Justice Studies
The EJ framework has become influential in explaining social mobilization against the exploitation of nature and its impact on societies. Grassroots activists endeavour to defend land, water, air, indigenous rights, and local cultures against increasing pressures on the environment. Research on EJ movements has come a long way since the pioneering analyses of the unequal distribution of environmental hazards in marginalized localities in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, mainly in the United States. Multiple forms of injustice have been investigated, highlighting the importance of class, race, gender, ethnicity, and other structural inequalities.12 EJ networks have challenged the notion that societies in the South are “too poor to be green”.13 Guha and Martinez-Alier have put forward a “varieties of environmentalism” thesis, which highlights movements arising from “social conflicts over access to and control over natural resources”.14
Environmental protest scholarship examines resistance to mega-development projects, industrialization, pollution of water, soil, air, and their impact on social groups. The “first generation” of EJ research mapped conflicts over the environment and analysed the inequalities experienced by marginalized groups in terms of environmental benefits and harms. The Environmental Justice Atlas (EJA), a documentation effort of academics and activists, has collected over 4160 cases up to August 2024.15 Political ecology lenses reveal the underlying economic, social, and political processes and power relations driving environmental injustices globally.16
The “second generation” of EJ studies has shifted its focus towards more conceptual and critical analysis, with a focus on the global South. Scholars call for re-evaluating core concepts by including participation, recognition, and capabilities of vulnerable communities.17 Indigenous activism shows that justice extends beyond the unequal distribution of environmental threats to encompass a broader commitment to the wellbeing and integrity of the natural world. They see it as their task to protect the intrinsic value of forests, mountains, indigenous flora and fauna, and landscapes, which they regard as crucial components of the Earth’s heritage rather than as resources to be exploited.
Others challenge the universality of key EJ terms.18 Grassroots activists construct their notions of justice by blending different elements based on contextual considerations and strategies for change.19 Escobar, discussing Latin American perspectives, underlined the interlinkages between capitalist modernity and environmental crisis, in particular the strict separation of humans from nature. “A regime of capitalist nature”, in his words, “subalternized all other articulations of biology and history, of nature and society”. Decolonising EJ entails the appreciation of other modes of existence that recognize “culturally established continuity (…) between the natural, human and the supernatural worlds”.20
Álvarez and Coolsaet suggest challenging the universality of how concepts such as “environment” or “justice” are understood in the West.21 Williams and Mawdsley argue for rethinking EJ scholarship assumptions in postcolonial contexts, diving into the diversity of environmentalism and EJ struggles.22 In South America, scholars have advocated for a “decolonial turn”.23 They emphasise the significance of political, economic, and social contexts in perpetuating injustices. Decolonial and postcolonial perspectives highlight how activism is constrained not only by historical developments but also by ongoing (neo-)colonial practices and internal colonial dynamics within nation-states. For example, Etkind’s work on Russia illustrates how imperial policies impact both people and space.24
EJ scholarship has increasingly focused on the intersectionality of environmental injustices. Malin and Ryder observe that earlier research examined individual factors like ethnicity, race, social class, gender, age, and location in relation to environmental hazards.25 However, there is significant value in shifting to a broader perspective that explores how these structural inequalities collectively impact the well-being of those living in oppressive and marginalized conditions.
Unlike Latin America and India, where concepts like environmentalism of the poor, subaltern experiences, and indigenous activism are well-studied, the Middle East has been largely overlooked in EJ debates. However, recent research on Middle Eastern ecologies is beginning to incorporate these frameworks.26 Bayat suggests that studying activism within closed political settings can provide insights into theories of social mobilizations.27 This perspective is equally applicable to the EJ movement, which, though global, is influenced by national and local conditions.
3 Background: Environmental Crisis and Activism in Rojhelat
Iran’s ecosystems face growing pressure from water crisis, air pollution, deforestation, desertification, biodiversity loss, and other problems. The IRI has not only failed to address the ecological crisis but has also used fossil fuels revenues for infrastructure projects that disproportionately affect subaltern populations.28 Large dams, hydraulic infrastructure, and wells have significantly impacted water resources in Rojhelat, as in other parts of Iran. As documented in the EJ Atlas, the majority of socio-ecological conflicts in Iran are related to water.29 Hassaniyan gives an overview of Iran’s ecological problems related to water based on a qualitative analysis of secondary sources.30 He describes Iran’s “asymmetric water policy” as a hard path approach that “views water as virtually infinite” and is “devoid of any incorporation of ecological values”, unlike a soft path approach in which water is understood as a limited resource.31 Moreover, water flows “to the interior of Iran, home to Iran’s mega-industries and where most Iranian ruling politicians come from”, meaning that water is transported over large distances to dry regions, instead of locating industries in neglected provinces where water is abundant such as Lorestan, Kurdistan, and Baluchistan.32 Hassaniyan gives examples in which large infrastructural water projects channelling water away from these provinces caused displacement and destruction of villages and historical heritage and resulted in desertification of previously fertile land and lack of safe drinking water. Criticism against these policies and projects is voiced by activists, researchers at Iranian universities, and some government officials. However, political pressure, biased and inaccessible data, and limited budgets severely constrain their efforts.
Despite rich natural resources, Rojhelat remains one of the least developed regions in Iran, with limited industrialization and low investment levels. The Human Development Index ranks Kurdistan province as one of the most economically “de-developed regions” in Iran.33 Due to socio-economic conditions, health and educational disparities, many families struggle to meet basic needs. Widespread unemployment leads to disillusionment among youth, prompting many to migrate to industrial areas, larger cities, or abroad.34 This situation has also created a “grey zone” where smuggling, especially across the Iran-Iraq border, exposes workers known as kolber to significant health and life risks.35
The IRI’s centrist approach in an ethnically and culturally diverse country dates back to Reza Shah’s efforts to use military force to curb tribal autonomy and assert control over the periphery. This centralization reflects a Persian-centric nation-state model aimed at assimilating local cultures and imposing the Persian language, in this way restricting the rights of Kurdish and other ethnic groups, such as Baluchis, Azeris, Arabs, and Turkic people. The Pahlavi regime pursued modernization by assimilating non-Persian ethno-religious communities, which it perceived as “uncivilized,” into the “Persian nation.” The Islamist regime has strengthened the prominence of Shia Islamic and Persian identity, promoting religious nationalism that aims to supersede ethno-national differences.36
The repressive nature of the government and its control over society deters many from engaging in the public sphere. Over the years, waves of repression targeted contentious actions. During President Khatami’s “reform period” (1997–2005), some opportunities for activism opened up, leading to increased grassroots action among urban youth, women, and professionals. The number of environmental organizations grew during the 1990s, with 250 such groups and numerous volunteers and supporters by 2003.37 Several other NGO s incorporated environmental issues into their agendas, and some environmental associations were linked to state power. However, it is challenging to categorise environmental activities, events and acts of resistance in Iran as an organized social movement. Besides the regime’s security approach, a major obstacle is the lack of unity among activists, who are divided by ethnicity, religion-secularism, or differing approaches to environmental issues, women’s rights, or identity politics.
In Rojhelat, despite oppressive conditions, environmental activities have developed over the past two decades into institutionalized membership organizations and semi-professional networks. Kurdish activists we talked to usually frame the water and wider crisis through the lens of injustice and colonial relations, arguing that the state acts as a “coloniser” in “peripheral” areas with minority populations. Environmental consciousness has also been strengthened by changes in the transnational Kurdish movement and its incorporation of ecology as one of the pillars of “democratic confederalism”, a political model inspired by Abdullah Öcalan.38 Democratic confederalism envisions the creation of a stateless democracy, a non-governmental social model wherein ethnic, cultural, and religious communities voluntarily coalesce and reconstitute themselves as autonomous political entities independent of state control. In Rojhelat, this model has been advocated, among others, by the Kurdistan Free Life Party (Parti Jiyani Azadi Kurdistan, PJAK), alongside the promotion of women’s mobilization, political engagement and democratization through institutions such as Kodar (Democratic and Free Society of Eastern Kurdistan). However, this connection of environmentalism with party politics also has a downside; the division along political party ideologies restricts membership and limits its effectiveness as many people wish either to stay away from openly supporting parties or ideologies, or do not want to be associated with any of them.
People’s engagement in nature-related projects is constrained by other factors: first, people’s focus on meeting basic needs under difficult economic conditions, exacerbated by international sanctions, isolation, and government development policies; and second, the internal political situation. According to an activist in Mariwan, the government has prevented the establishment of new organizations, for example by creating long waiting times for registration.39 Activists try various channels to communicate their messages, but the state limits such actions through political control, which makes cooperation with other actors difficult. They face pressure, including threats from security services, which view environmental action as a form of insurgence. An environmentalist who held an important position in one of these NGO s and now resides abroad told us: “As an environmental activist, you are monitored and controlled in any case (…), because you are doing a political act. (…). A Kurdish person who is politically active will face severe punishment. You will be treated like an armed peshmerga.”
In recent years many members of the Green Chiya Association (Chiya) and other environmental organizations were arrested or threatened, as activists confirmed.40 Due to the lack of safety in the public sphere, Kurds have created alternative spaces for discussing sensitive issues. Pro-nature activities, cleaning events, or awareness raising meetings are tolerated as long as people do not question the state. Political and ideological discussion around the causes of the environmental crisis or the discriminatory approach of the state towards natural resources are held in private.41
4 Grassroots Understanding of Environmental Justice in Rojhelat
This section explores how Kurdish activists interpret the concepts of environment and justice, central to the global environmental justice movement. We aim to nuance the discussion by highlighting the diverse ways these ideas are understood. In the face of exclusion and oppression, Kurds link their fight for homeland rights with democratic ideals. For women activists, environmentalism becomes a field of empowerment within patriarchal constraints and drives the politicization of nature.
4.1 Environment as Lived Heritage
Activists we interviewed motivated their commitment to environmental protection by both survival needs (including pastoralism, agriculture, and access to water) and health concerns, as well as their conceptualization of human-nature relations. The Chiya Association captures this idea in its motto: “The preservation of the environment is the preservation of life.” Similar ideas were also expressed by activists, for example: “Without nature, a Kurdish human being is meaningless.” This echoes other research findings on environmental activism in the global South showing that for rural, economically disadvantaged communities, protecting the environment is a matter of survival, not just conservation. Environmental struggles are then linked to securing basic needs such as food, water, and shelter. This contrasts with environmental movements in Western industrialized countries, where post-materialist values such as quality of life and conservation dominate. The “environmentalism of the poor”, especially among peasant and indigenous groups, presents itself as acts of resistance by people who defend their territories and ways of life against the encroachments of industrialization, global capitalism, and growth-oriented development, and emphasises the interdependence of people and the environment for continuity and sustainability.42
Activists presented the Kurds as having a deep connection with the natural world, which is ingrained in their identity and culture. This brings Kurdish environmentalism into line with global indigenous struggles, which are characterized by a reverence for the natural world.43 We build on previous findings by introducing the perspective of conceptualising the natural environment as heritage and an integral part of identity. The concept of heritage has undergone significant changes in the twentieth century and refers specifically to elements of culture and nature that remain important to the community. It represents the norms, values, and institutions that people consider significant enough to pass on to future generations. Rather than being a memory of the past, heritage serves as a key element of social identity.44 The revocation of heritage is also a symbolic tool to strengthen social identity against the assimilating and discriminatory practices of the nation-state, in this case Iran. In the context of repression, people treat their natural and cultural heritage as an anchor that helps them seek preservation and stability.
Some environmentalists pointed out that the theme of nature is popular in Kurdish art—folk songs, poems or proverbs. Poetry, music and oral literature have an important place in the Kurdish identity and worldview.45 A famous singer who uses environmental motifs in his art is Osman Hawrami.46 His traditional songs contain symbols and ideas of interconnections between Kurds and nature. Activists articulated that the pro-ecological values present in Kurdish culture and heritage form a motivation for people to engage in environmental activities. Despite the contradictions of contemporary urban lifestyles, urban Kurds in Rojhelat, representing mainly the middle class, romanticized the past and presented a reverence for nature as an essential element of Kurdish cultural heritage and identity. Similar to Kurds elsewhere, they see their past way of life as environmentally friendly, with “harmony with nature” and sustainability as core principles.
This approach was partly born out of necessity, as the livelihoods and survival of many Kurds in earlier times, and to some extent until today, depended directly on nature. Like many indigenous, peasant, and pastoralist populations around the world, they have “co-evolved sustainably with Nature”.47 An example of this dependency on nature is the habit of seasonal migration which some of our interviewees mentioned. A person from Hawraman affirmed that people used to migrate to the highlands for cooler temperatures and pastures with their sheep and goats, while in winter seasons they returned to the warmer lowlands. For centuries, nomadic shepherds roamed in search of grazing spots. This way of life has transformed due to factors such as lifestyle changes, urbanization, economic challenges, and government restrictions, particularly for herders near the border areas who face restrictions from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Narratives about these migratory legacies hide its conflictual aspects, which are raised by historians. McDowall mentions that the movements of the tribes used to provoke tensions with settled communities as well as between tribes and their claims to lands.48 Activists do not touch on such topics but present a more optimistic narrative. Another example of environment-friendly heritage was given by a Kurdish activist living in Tehran who mentioned that many people in Hawraman value traditional architecture that is compatible with the natural environment, use natural materials for construction, and make use of environmentally friendly practices.
People working in the field of environmental protection also underline the importance of the Zagros Mountains for the people of Kurdistan as their representation of homeland. Particularly in Hawraman and the Western Azerbaijan Province, many people depend heavily on nature for their livelihoods, including agriculture and orchards. Another example often cited by activists is the Sirwan River, which starts in the Zagros Mountains in Rojhelat and flows through Kurdish areas of Iraq to become a tributary of the Tigris. The river Sirwan holds a special place in the formation of cultural identity in Hawraman. Today, there is great concern among Kurds about the declined water level of this river. Dams built on the Sirwan are seen as a major disaster for local people, wildlife, ecosystems, the river itself, and Kurdish cultural heritage. Rivers in Rojhelat are commonly represented as living beings with a soul and as reflecting themes such as loss and resistance, something that is part of the Kurdish socio-political memory. This is for example expressed in what a young woman activist told us about her motivation to engage in the environmental field, namely by describing the river Sirwan not just as a “thing” or an “element of the natural landscape”, but as a “human being.” Other examples of rivers being personified as living beings are evident in some well-known songs. The song “Goma Shin” by Nasser Razazi, with lyrics by Ahmad Bazgir, depicts one of the tributaries of the Zab River near Sardasht. The river, like a human figure, is portrayed as having lost its essence under the influence of capitalism and technology. The song mourns the lives of Peshmerga fighters who have perished in the waters of the river, and reflects a deep yearning for the restoration of the human essence and original nature of both the river and those who drowned in it. Similarly, the song “Sirwan” by Adil Naderi portrays the Sirwan River as a human being carrying the bodies of fallen Peshmergas downstream, while Midiya Hossain’s semi-mourning song, also named “Sirwan”, commemorates the civilians lost in the Halabja massacre of 1988, again personifying the river as a figure capable of human grief and suffering. This perspective differs from the mainstream Islamic view on nature and non-human beings.
In Rojhelat, activists see themselves as people who should prevent ecological disaster and protect the intrinsic value of forests, mountains, indigenous flora and fauna, and landscapes, which they see as components of the Earth’s heritage rather than as resources. Rivers approached as human beings have a different ontological status. Activists’ holistic worldview has significant implications, transcending anthropocentrism. It changes the way people relate to nature and resonates with the recent debate on the “more-than-human worlds,” the interconnectedness of the human and non-human realms and the need to defend the foundations of life. Within this perspective, EJ activism goes beyond resisting extraction and exploitation, securing human well-being, or the right to a healthy environment.49 Instead, it becomes a collective effort to seek justice not only for human beings but also for the natural world itself, which is under unprecedented pressure (as for example among the Maori people in New Zealand and other indigenous groups).50 This perspective goes beyond concerns of distributive justice to encompass a broader commitment to the wellbeing and integrity of the natural world. As Álvarez and Coolsaet wrote, decolonizing environmental justice entails a recognition that there are many modes of life and one of them—“relational”—attaches an ethical dimension to land and nature.51
4.2 Opposing Eco-coloniality
Environmental justice activism in Rojhelat is an integral part of multidimensional efforts to resist the “eco-coloniality” of the Iranian state, referring to the injustices experienced by minorities in relation to the natural world (in the Kurdish case in particular water, forests, lands) due to unequal power relations and state policies. While colonialism and coloniality have been long-standing topics in Kurdistan’s political literature, in recent years these terms have increasingly been used in relation to the structures of the Iranian nation-state, especially among Kurdish academics and political thinkers with affiliations to the KDPI (Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, see for instance the Tishk journal). The works by Abdullah Öcalan and Ismail Beşikçi on colonialism (Beşikçi was translated into Persian) have helped contextualise the term recently within the political discourse in Rojhelat. Following Beşikçi and other scholars who stress the colonial policies and practices of nation states towards Kurds, scholars and activists conceptualise the Kurdish geographies as divided over different states as internal colonies.52 They regard coloniality as an outcome of nation-building projects and the assimilationist policies, dispossession, and the exploitation of minorities’ resources for the benefit of the centre that these projects entail. In Iran, the logic of internal coloniality is increasingly discussed by activists in the field of ecology in relation to the unequal power relations between the central government and the regions inhabited by minorities, something which Hassaniyan refers to as “environmental racism”.53
Kurdish environmentalists thus share practices with global EJ movements, resisting the unjust distribution of environmental threats and challenging the practices of neoliberal capitalism, while also connecting their situation to that of indigenous communities in other parts of the world. In our interviews, Kurdish activists emphasized their opposition to development policies that subordinate minorities, allow their exploitation, and perpetuate inequalities. They were speaking of their subjective experience of losing “paradise.” In their narratives about Rojhelat’s environment, activists present life in the past as a utopian coexistence with nature, which contrasts with the current “eco-colonial” era of pollution, destruction of natural landscapes, damming of rivers, roads, mines, and deforestation. The most striking example of eco-coloniality raised by activists is the transfer of water from Rojhelat to the interior of Iran, which is perceived as “water theft.” As one activist said: “Water transfers as well are controlled by other administrations. The decisions regarding our water are made in other, non-Kurdish provinces.” Dams are a major concern, as the government constructs them to manage dwindling water resources but disregards the interests of Kurdish communities. Despite water abundance, the capital of Kurdistan Province, Sanandaj, has been experiencing water crisis. The hegemonic discourse, which portrays dams as essential for modernity and development, producing hydroelectric power to support industrial agriculture, is not accepted by Kurdish activists.54 Instead, they perceive dams as elements of displacement, dispossession, and warfare, and as the consequences of a “mafia”, as one activist put it:55
The Java Dam was built in Sanandaj, despite all our protests (…). Its [the river’s] ecological diversity was lost, and then the sand mafia [for construction and concrete] came into action and destroyed all the areas around the river to mine sand. (…) The war zone is apparently still alive. The Choman and Kani Goizhan dams in Baneh have destroyed a large part of the oak forests in this region.
The transfer of water to central, arid areas of the country significantly affects the forests, orchards, soil, and crops in areas where dams are built. In addition, the interference in the flows of lakes and rivers is likely to cause migration of different communities, which may intensify inter-ethnic conflicts. Another example of eco-coloniality was raised by interviewees in relation to the Talwar Dam in Kurdistan Province. The dam is intended to improve the agricultural situation and development of the provinces of Zanjan and Hamadan. More than 3,000 hectares of land in the region, including 18 ancient sites dating back 7,500 years, have been submerged.56 Not only did the dam flood agricultural land, villages, and heritage sites, but it was also designed to benefit other provinces.57 Images of pipelines diverting water from the dam to the provinces of Hamadan, Tabriz, and Zanjan circulated among people and caused anger as a symbol of injustice.
In March 2017, a conference took place organized by a Kurdish news agency to discuss the repercussions of building the Daryan, Gavshan, Talwar, and Siazakh dams.58 It concluded that the construction of the Daryan dam would result in an increase in unemployment among farmers and shepherds; lack of access to clean drinking water; the transfer of one billion cubic metres of water to other provinces; the destruction of forests and the historical spring of Kani which has an annual flow of 150 million cubic metres; the demolition of 41 historical sites; and the loss of Hajij village.59 Despite several protests and actions organized by environmental activists, including a large-scale demonstration in 2016 to stop construction (the Save Kani Bel Campaign), the Daryan Dam was built. According to the Presidential Strategic Centre Studies, only ten percent of Kurdistan’s water is used in the province, and the dams in Kurdistan are controlled by other provinces.60 The dam led to profound changes in the traditional lifestyle of the Hawrami people.61
The building of dams, diversion tunnels, and pipelines have caused another major ecological disaster: the shrinkage of Lake Urmia, once one of the largest lakes in western Asia. In 2017, it was reduced to only ten percent of its 1970s size.62 Despite restoration efforts, the lake is now on the brink of disappearance, affecting the livelihoods of around one million local people who depend on agriculture.63 This situation has also worsened inter-ethnic tensions due to heightened competition for water resources. Insufficient water availability is forcing some villagers to dig illegal wells, further straining underground water resources and exacerbating the lake’s plight.
Figure 1
Lake Urmia—one of the greatest ecological catastrophes in contemporary Iran
Citation: Kurdish Studies Journal 2, 2 (2024) ; 10.1163/29502292-00202006
Photo by Dobrosława Wiktor-MachKurdish activists blame the state for the escalating water problems, claiming that water policies favour the central regions to the detriment of the Kurds. Concerns about water transfers are expressed even by official authorities.64 For example, Murad Niya, the governor of Kurdistan province, stated that Kurdistan’s water should not be transferred to other provinces and called on country officials to pay attention to this issue.65 Mehdi Farshadan, a parliament member, expressed similar concerns, saying that the construction of 33 dams in Kurdistan province do not benefit the province’s inhabitants.66 In addition, the construction of dams leads to the destruction of villages, local ecosystems, and cultural and natural heritage, driven by a centre-periphery logic. While EJ literature often critiques forces such as capitalism and neoliberalism, the role of the state and its institutions remains crucial.67 Global capitalism, with its logic of accumulation, has strongly affected people’s relationship with nature, especially in regions such as the Middle East, which serve as new frontiers for capitalist expansion and the consolidation of power and wealth by governing elites.68
Another topic through which activists brought up eco-coloniality during our meetings was forest fires and tree felling in Rojhelat, which were regarded as state violence against people, habitats, and resources. Activists believed that some fires were politically motivated and held the IRGC responsible for the catastrophes. Moreover, in some cases of naturally occurring forest fires, the government did not take any measures to stop them. Two activists independently claimed that the IRGC has launched militant operations in some areas of the Zagros Mountains in response to the presence of PJAK guerrillas. Similar actions have been confirmed in the case of the forests of Piranshahr and Sardasht where members of other Kurdish parties, including the KDPI, tried to hide. Deforestation and deliberate fires are regarded by many Kurds as a war tactic of the state and a political means to get rid of opponents and undermine the opposition. The defenders of the forests who lost their lives during rescue operations to prevent fires in the areas of Paveh are considered “martyrs”, a term that shows how these are interpreted as political acts.
Since they cannot count on the state to help solve the ecological catastrophes in their localities, Kurdish activists engage in transnational cooperation with environmentalist groups from Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, supporting each other’s initiatives, campaigns and protests. Harrison argued that the EJ movement is too dependent on the state, even though the latter is often responsible for the degradation of nature.69 Democratic confederalism (see introduction) emerged in the Kurdish movement as a response to the failure of the nation-state model. However, not all environmental damage can be directly attributed to government policies. In our interviews, activists mentioned the negative effects of industrial agriculture, which has become increasingly important in the Kurdish-majority regions and relies on intensive water extraction. Tobacco and watermelon farming, for example, require huge amounts of water, contributing to the depletion of the groundwater table.
Environmental activists claim that the government’s inattentiveness to their voices is exacerbating the situation, which will have repercussions throughout the country, especially for the water crisis. Even if activists often feel helpless, their multifaceted struggles, combining community-based and judiciary actions, sometimes have an impact. The most spectacular, according to local activists we talked to, was to fight the government in a legal case to cancel the oil refinery project near Lake Zrebar, which is protected under the Ramsar Convention.70
According to the environmentalists we spoke to, government documents promoting sustainable development and local participation in environmental management are mere propaganda. A similar idea is included in a document issued by PJAK, which considers the government’s draft document “The Protection and Management of the Zagros” as a tool to strengthen the state’s control over the population.71 PJAK argues that the latter document uses many terms from the international sustainability agenda, but hides the fact that the state is the key actor responsible for preventing protection of the Zagros mountains and restricting the voice of people active for this cause.
Eco-coloniality also involves a security dimension.72 There is a constant surveillance of Kurdish NGO s, their staff, and their social media activities. They cannot present their political stance officially and have to keep discussions about environmental challenges in private networks. One person who previously held an important position in an environmental NGO said:
NGO s are under the supervision of the governorate and all their activities are monitored. As soon as I was elected (…), I was summoned to the secret service and interrogated several times. (…) If we wanted to do something, plant an oak tree or do a climbing program, they were already at the designated place before us. We were always surveilled.
4.3 Recognition, Participation, and Women’s Involvement in Environmentalism
Environmentalism in Rojhelat can be seen as an element of “subaltern counter-publics”—that is, a space where marginalized people develop critical discourses that challenge the official public sphere.73 Environmentalist organizations as well as Kurdish political parties have contributed to this process by linking democratization, women’s rights, and environmental issues. Consequently, most environmental groups in Rojhelat, in addition to their statutory work, also pursue other goals with their activities: encouraging people to be active, to participate in common initiatives, and to challenge mainstream political and identity discourses. Women’s emancipation is an important part of this. For example, the mission of the Chiya association includes promoting “community culture and public participation” by engaging people in environmental work to protect natural landscapes, mountains, pastures, and waters.74 Similar to the wider Iranian environmental movement, women in Rojhelat are present in environmental activities and play an important role in this sphere. As long as the work for nature protection is seen as apolitical, it is a relatively safe space in the public sphere for women to engage in, unlike, for example, participation in political parties.75 The representation of environmentalism as an uncontested space is part of the official narrative of the Iranian state.
This narrative reduces environmental problems to cultural norms and makes it easier for women from a conservative society to get involved. Still, as activists underlined, women face enormous obstacles and constraints from traditional, patriarchal society. According to our research participants, there is currently only one active women’s environmental NGO, Anjoman-e Sabz-e Chiya. A woman activist and a lawyer from the Kurdistan Province stressed the impact of social norms and the mainstream view of gender roles: “Women, partly due to the barriers of traditional society, are not eager to enter the public sphere. Some women fear that they will be labelled as feminists.” Another young female environmentalist noted that because of social pressure, gender norms and male control, women who choose to get involved in any activism need to have strong personalities.
A woman from Piranshahr told us about the difficulties she faced while joining Halgourd Association, which is working in various fields, including culture, art, mountain climbing, and environment. Her brother was opposed to her joining the association, reasoning that she would spend time with men who are not her relatives and that she would stay out late at night. She nevertheless joined the NGO and reflected on her experience:
The story of my personal life participating in social activities reflects the problem of more women in Kurdish society. Kurdish men do not allow their wives or sisters to participate in social affairs. A Kurdish man believes that a Kurdish woman has to stay at home and be busy with housework. Or they say that women and girls should not be allowed to know about these issues.
A former member of a Mariwan-based association told us about the difficult process they faced to engage more women in their organization. Another activist who held an important position in an environmental NGO said that in some cases, the presence of elderly women is helpful: “When they saw that an old woman was active in this group, the families of these girls and women felt more comfortable allowing their daughters to participate in the activities of the association.”
Some left-wing political parties advocate for women’s rights and link this goal with ecology. PJAK’s manifesto calls for an end to the exploitation of the environment and for promoting the “liberation of women from the grips of the patriarchal system”.76 It promotes the vision of social ecology that serves as the ideological basis for the above-mentioned Kurdish project of democratic confederalism, criticising the patriarchal system for being responsible for domination over women and over nature. PJAK’s ecofeminist program for a just and nature-friendly society rests upon the need to change the mentality of male domination and hierarchy and the party sees women’s participation in the public sphere as a condition for a democratic society.77 It is, however, necessary to acknowledge the difficulties in promoting Öcalan’s ideas in Rojhelat due to high levels of the Iranian state oppression and militarized response to any form of organized social mobilization, activism, and protests.
The opportunities for women’s activism vary between the provinces of Rojhelat. Sine, the capital city of the Kurdistan province, has a reputation of being a liberal centre where women’s activism is established and women have more freedom and opportunities in everyday life. But in many other places across Rojhelat, girls and women are prevented from participating in such activities by their families. These challenges have prompted discussions within the environmental movement about women’s rights and status in society, as a former leader of an environmental NGO from the Kurdistan province noted. He emphasized the importance of women’s liberation as one of the pillars of his association’s ideology. He noted that with time and with more women becoming active in the organization, men’s mentality began to change; after women showed their commitment and skills in environmental activism, men began to value women’s role more. Many women activists volunteer to raise awareness or develop a “culture of environmentalism” among various social groups. One member of Chiya said that when she realized the degree of destruction of the Zagros Mountains, she decided to counter this:
As a Kurdish woman activist, focusing on the teaching of village women for many years, I have tried to play a small role in protecting our nature (…). In the villages of Mariwan, I used to teach mothers how to encourage their children to prevent destroying nature and how to deal with the environment.
In the Chiya organization, women play an important role in its education department, where about fifteen to twenty women are divided into three groups to raise ecological awareness. One group runs workshops for children on how to connect with the natural environment and appreciate its beauty, using creative tools. The second group works specifically with rural women. They discuss issues which are related to village life, such as nature pollution, diseases that humans can contract from animals, and ways to protect the natural habitat. A strategy commonly used in this rural group is influencing men through their wives, for example to encourage them to stop killing wild animals which is commonly done to protect farming. Similarly, volunteers appealed to the sentiments of mothers wanting to protect their children in the case of forest fires. Women in villages encouraged their husbands to go to the burning sites and join the collective struggle to stop the fires. A third team is responsible for training men. Team members visit mosques to talk to men about the consequences of environmental damage and ways to protect nature.
Many Kurdish women choose environmentalism as a field of activism and are more likely to hold important positions in this field than in others, because of the common association between environmentalism and womanhood.78 By referring to the allegedly nature-friendly essence of femininity, it is easier for women to explain their motivations for participation in public affairs. Some activists argue that this fact does not necessarily indicate women’s empowerment. By allowing women such positions, the regime may aim to enable them to deal with “less important” issues, organising waste collection or tree planting. Some women also mentioned that it is problematic to define environmentalism as non-political:
I have a critical approach to the discourse that dominates the problems of the environment. (…) In Iran, they say that environmental problems arise from the lack of proper culture, that people don’t respect nature. But I think that the problem is related to development and politics.
Nevertheless, women in leadership positions in environmental movements can use this as a way to speak more loudly for women’s rights. Both men and women are exposed to feminist and ecofeminist ideas within environmental activism, which has the potential to change gender relations in the long run. Latin American feminists have stressed the importance of “domesticating politics”, that is, re-politicizing the private sphere and changing dominant values and practices.79 Apparently, in the Kurdish context, the nature-related field of activism has similarly become politicized along gendered lines.
5 Conclusions
The aim of this article was to discuss the environmental crisis in Rojhelat from the perspective of EJ, which underlines power structures and inequalities among social and ethnic groups in relation to the environment and natural resources. We showed how the Kurdish community in Iran is affected by environmental changes, which are worsened by colonial practices on the part of an authoritarian, nationalist, and theocratic regime. The degradation of Rojhelat’s ecologies faces resistance from the local population, and environmental activism is on the rise despite violent government responses.
Our interpretation of Kurdish environmentalism in Rojhelat suggests that activists’ actions can be seen as part of global efforts to prevent the expansion of capitalism, the massive damming of rivers, and accompanying injustices. As such, Kurdish environmental mobilization can be seen as a part of a global EJ movement, where non-Western practices, norms and opportunities become increasingly influential. Environmental injustices in Rojhelat underline the role of political and economic factors behind ecological problems, specifically the oppressive nature of the Iranian regime and its centrist policies, as well as the under-development and exploitation of regions considered by the government as peripheral and politically disloyal. These political conditions also influence the strategies of activists, who cannot freely address their claims to the government and advocate for political reforms. While direct action is a common tool in environmental justice repertoires of contention, in repressive states this tactic is limited. In Iran, activists thus mobilize in other ways, often through discreet and “underground” tactics of resistance.80 An alternative space is created where politics, involving opposition to the centralized state, is interwoven into small-scale environmental activism.
The decolonial turn in EJ studies asks what meanings are attributed to the concepts of “environment” and “justice” in the local constellations of culture, politics and economy, giving voice to people instead of creating top-down definitions or assuming fixed or universal meanings. Decolonizing environmental justice involves greater appreciation of socio-cultural and political realities and more attention to the empirical evidence of the varieties of environmentalism and the intersectionality of justice. We therefore investigated grassroots understandings of these concepts in Rojhelat and identified some patterns which emerged from peoples’ narratives.
First, Kurdish environmental struggles include ideas, symbols and narratives rooted in the legacy of Kurdish culture and heritage which form important motivations for people to join environmental activities. Secondly, Kurdish environmentalism addresses Iran’s centralist approach as “eco-coloniality”, disadvantaging and exploiting subaltern communities. The transfer of water from Rojhelat in the context of country-wide water scarcity is the most prominent example. Because of the lack of access to democratic political tools, some Kurdish environmental activists regard democratic confederalism as an attractive ideology because of its bottom-up and democracy-oriented approach. Finally, many Kurdish environmental groups have extended the space of ecological contestation to include women’s emancipation. Due to the perception that ecology is an apolitical field of activism, which is supported by the official discourse, environmentalism offers a chance for women to engage in the public sphere more easily than in party politics. The environmental movement thus offers a space to encourage changes in social norms about gender relations.
The Kurdish environmental struggle highlights the intersection of environmental concerns, socio-political resistance against injustices and authoritarianism, and women’s struggle for emancipation. For the EJ movement to truly be global, it must consider the complex, intersecting processes that drive people from diverse contexts to mobilize in defence of the environment, as well as the various ways individuals engage with their natural surroundings and other-than-human beings.
Acknowledgements
This article is part of the project “Activism and its moral and cultural foundation: Alternative citizenship and women’s roles in Kurdistan and the diaspora” (ALCITfem). The research leading to these results has received funding from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014–2021, project registration number: 2019/34/H/HS2/00541. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who took part in, and helped us with, our research in Rojhelat. We also thank the reviewers and KSJ editors for their invaluable comments and suggestions.
Guha and Martinez-Alier, Varieties of Environmentalism.
Álvarez and Coolsaet, “Decolonizing environmental justice studies”; Schlosberg and Carruthers, “Indigenous struggles, environmental justice, and community capabilities”; Holifield et al., “Spaces of environmental justice”.
Bayat, Life as Politics.
Tilly, Social Movements 1768–2004.
While this paper touches on the intersections of environmental justice with patriarchy, authoritarianism, capitalism, and imperialism, these topics are addressed only when relevant to the main arguments. The concept of environmental justice serves as the primary theoretical framework, allowing for a focused examination of the intersection between ecological issues and the struggle for justice.
Abe, “Iranian environmentalism”; Doyle and Simpson, “Traversing more than speed bumps”; Fadaee, “Rethinking Southern environmentalism”.
Afrasiabi, “The environmental movement in Iran,” 433.
Hassaniyan, “The environmentalism of the subalterns”; Hassaniyan, “Iran’s water policy”.
Martinez-Alier et al., “Is there a global environmental justice movement?”
Stroup and Goode, “On the outside looking in”.
Informed consent was obtained from participants prior to the interviews. They were told that taking part in the study was voluntary and they could withdraw at any time.
Cole and Foster, From the Ground Up; Sandler and Pezzullo, Environmental Justice and Environmentalism.
Sikor and Newell, “Globalising environmental justice?”.
Guha and Martinez-Alier, Varieties of Environmentalism, xxi.
Heiman, “Race, waste, and class”; Swyngedouw and Heynen, “Urban political ecology, justice and the politics of scale”; Gürcan, “Extractivism, neoliberalism, and the environment”; Schroeder et al., “Third world environmental justice”; Williams and Mawdsley, “Postcolonial environmental justice”.
Holifield et al., “Spaces of environmental justice”; Schlosberg and Carruthers, “Indigenous struggles, environmental justice, and community capabilities”.
Pellow, What is Critical Environmental Justice?; Pellow and Brulle, Power, Justice and the Environment.
Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice.
Escobar, Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise.
Álvarez and Coolsaet, “Decolonizing environmental justice studies.”
Williams and Mawdsley, “Postcolonial environmental justice”.
Rodríguez and Inturias, “Conflict transformation in indigenous peoples’ territories”.
Etkind, Internal Colonization.
Malin and Ryder, “Developing deeply intersectional environmental justice scholarship”.
Hassaniyan, “The environmentalism of the subalterns”; Tinti, “Scales of justice”; Sowers, “Environmental activism in the Middle East and North Africa”.
Bayat, Life as Politics.
Tahbaz, “Environmental challenges in today’s Iran.”
Hassaniyan, “Iran’s water policy”.
Ibid, 421, 424, 427.
Ibid, 425.
Mohammadpour, “Decolonizing Voices from Rojhelat”; Hassaniyan and Sohrabi, “Colonial management of Iranian Kurdistan”.
Lob and Habibi, “The politics of development and security in Iran’s border provinces”.
Soleimani and Mohammadpour, “The everydayness of spectacle violence under the Islamic Republic”.
Asgharzadeh, Iran and the Challenge of Diversity; Mohammadpour, “Decolonizing voices from Rojhelat”.
Afrasiabi, “The environmental movement in Iran”.
Hunt, “Introduction”.
See also Hassaniyan, “The environmentalism of the subalterns”.
Chiya, the most prominent environmental organization in Rojhelat, has been active since its foundation in Mariwan in 1999. Recently, we have received information that on 10 September 2023, in a coordinated action, the Revolutionary Guards and security forces raided the annual meeting of the Chiya Association, during which more than 25 members of Chiya were detained with violence and sent to the IRGC’s intelligence detention centre.
For comparison with Kurds in Turkey organising resistance from the home, see Jongerden, “A spatial perspective on political group formation in Turkey after the 1971 coup.”
Guha and Martinez-Alier, Varieties of Environmentalism.
Löwy, “Ecosocial struggles of indigenous peoples”.
Graham et al., A Geography of Heritage.
Bocheńska et al., “Introduction”; Hamelink, The Sung Home.
Osman Khalidi (Stage name Osman Hawrami), born in 1925 in the village of Kimneh near Paveh, developed a profound passion for Hawrami songs in his youth.
Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor, 11.
McDowall, Modern History of the Kurds, 223–224.
Yan et al., “Learning with the land”.
Parsons et al., “Environmental justice and indigenous environmental justice”.
Álvarez and Coolsaet, “Decolonizing environmental justice studies”.
Beşikçi, Devletlerarasi Sömürge; Duruiz, “Tracing the conceptual genealogy of Kurdistan as international colony”; Matin-Asgari, “The Making of Iran’s Illiberal Nation-State (1921–1926)”; Sunca, “Colonial continuities in the Kurdish liberation”; Tejel, Syria’s Kurds: History, Politics and Society.
Hassaniyan, “Iran’s water policy”, 423.
EJA, Daryan Dam.
See also Hassaniyan, “Environmentalism in Iranian Kurdistan”.
See e.g. IRNA (2013), Mehr News Agency (2014).
Hassaniyan, “Environmentalism in Iranian Kurdistan”.
Amini et al., “Analysis and explanation of the effects of dam construction”.
Mian Abadi, “Barrasi-ye Taba’at-e Siyasi-Ejtema’i-ye Tarhay-e Kalan-e Enteghal Beyn-e Howzeyi-e Ab Goft-o Goohay-e Rahbordi.”
Ibid.
Amini et al., “Analysis and explanation of the effects of dam construction”.
Environmental Justice Atlas, Shrinkage and Slow Restoration.
Ibid.
Hassaniyan, “Iran’s water policy”.
Tasnim, “Lack of water can be managed”.
Haje, “The people of Kurdistan do not have the right to allocate their share of water”.
Williams and Mawdsley, “Postcolonial environmental justice”.
Kuruüzüm, Building from Scrap.
Harrison, “Environmental justice and the state”.
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an initiative by an Iranian environmentalist Eskandar Firouz, was signed in 1971 with the aim to ensure conservation and sustainable use of wetlands and their ecosystems.
PJAK, “Threatening Zagros desertification and diminishing 11,000-year-old forests”.
Hassaniyan, “Environmentalism in Iranian Kurdistan”.
Fraser, Justice Interruptus.
Chiya, “History”.
Similar situation has been observed in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, cf. Wiktor-Mach et al., “ ‘We want to have a positive impact’ ”.
PJAK, “Programme and Constitution approved by the Sixth Congress,” 46–47.
Hunt, “Introduction”.
Hassaniyan, “The environmentalism of the subalterns”.
Segato and McGlazer, “A manifesto in four themes”.
Cf. Williams and Mawdsley, “Postcolonial environmental justice”.
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