 Welcome back for the last talk of the day, and I'm particularly grateful to Nullifar who agreed to talk to us today on effectively yesterday lunchtime, so I think that's quite impressive Now, she chose, she's from Iran and studied experimental sciences at high school and biology, and then studied zoology at the Shahid Behesti University, and so learnt more about zoology, ecology, evolution and ethology, and during that time took on conservation projects at the Gulestarn National Park, which is the oldest national park of Iran, and she's travelled in the mountains, forests and deserts of Iran, looking for animals such as the Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard, and talking of course to the local people to understand their conflicts, which can be very real with different species. Now, she's just finishing an MSc course in conservation science at Imperial College, and we're very grateful, extremely grateful to her for speaking to us today about Iran crossroads of wildlife. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon everybody. It's so nice to be among lots of young people when I look at your fresh faces. It's just lots of energy for me. Thanks so much for coming. In the next 40 minutes we have a journey into different places in Iran, and I promise that we will all enjoy it because it's a really magnificent, amazing country in terms of biodiversity and different landscapes. So, when I was told to talk about Iran's nature, I was wondering how can I put all of this diversity and different landscapes and topographic regions together because it's a really vast country. So, as you see here, there are many different pictures from different species in Iran. Iran is home to more than 190 mammal species, more than 200 amphibian species, and more than 500 bird species, so that's quite a lot to talk about. So, what I did, I just put four different ecoregions in Iran as an excuse to just have a frame for talking about different places in Iran. As you see in this slide, we got four different main regions, ecoregions in Iran, and they stretch from Caspian region in north to Persian Gulf in south. So, we're going to talk about different characteristics of these regions and also biodiversity in each of them. So, first of all, Caspian region in north of Iran. The first thing that most of Iranians remember when we talk about north of Iran is Mount Damavan. It's the highest mount in not only Iran but in Middle East and also the highest volcano in whole Asia. So, that's quite a really magnificent landscape for all of us in Iran, and there are also some seasonal wetlands and main wetlands around Mount Damavan in north of Iran. When we go east to other provinces in north of Iran, we got these amazing landscapes. We temperate mixed forests like conifrose forests, as you see in this photo. They are usually lush lowland forests, and they home to many different mammal species and also birds in Iran. And then, there are of course wetlands in north of Iran. There are usually really, really main sites for migratory birds, and we got 24 Romsar sites in Iran, and there are six out of those 24 just in north of Iran in Caspian, Hurcanian region. Just a little bit information about Romsar sites. They are internationally important wetlands or sites for migratory birds and also endemic native vegetation, and they located in many different countries around the world, and Iran got 24 of these internationally important sites. So, this is a photo from Anzali wetland in north quite west of Iran. That's a really, really beautiful wetland with lots of endemic native vegetation and flowers. So, in this photo, I just wanted to put some of the main migratory and also main birds in north of Iran. As you see, there's fish eagle on top left, and also there are crane in north of Iran that they migrate all the way from Russia. They stay in Iran for a couple of months, and they go down to India or also Saudi Arabia. And of course, in north of Iran, when we talk about albos ranges, there are wild sheep in north of Iran, and this is also a different species with other wild sheep in other places in Iran. And then, in all the places, when you get prey like these, you also got a main predator for that. So, this is a photo from Persian leopard in Golestan National Park of Iran. Persian leopard is the largest leopard subspecies in the world. We got seven different subspecies of leopard, and this one is actually the biggest one. So, we want to go to west, Zagros region. This is the region of my ancestors. I'm coming from that region, so I feel a little bit different to this region. So, the landscape looks like this in west of Iran in Zagros region. There are rugged mountains and temporary forests like these. And as you see, the mountains look really, really harsh in Zagros region. And of course, the species should be really specialist to this region. Yes, Anthony, that's right. Anthony got those two wild goats on top of the mountains, and it's just incredible that you see them in a really harsh situation like that. Zagros mountain is home to more than 100 endemic plant species in Iran. And when we say endemic, it means they exist only in that region and not in any places in the world. In this photo, you see Feritilaria persica. This is one of the most important endemic flowers to west of Iran. It's absolutely beautiful. When you go to west of Iran in spring, you see the landscapes full of these red beautiful flowers in Iran. And of course, in the background, harsh mountains of Zagros. So the winter is quite really hard. And the main trees or vegetation of this region are wild oak trees, which are also different from the oaks that we got in north of Iran. So as you saw in that previous slide, this is a closer shot from a wild goats. I like to call them the king of the mountains because it's really, really hard to live in that situation in west. But they're quite adopted to that harsh landscape and habitat in Iran. This is a male wild goat and a female one together, which actually makes this photo really, really nice. And yeah, there we go. This is a mom with two babies on top of the mountains in west of Iran. It's absolutely amazing that this photo shows how they walk in the streets of mountains in west of Iran. So let's go to central Iran. Yeah, as I said, I'm coming from west of Iran, Zagros region. But that doesn't mean I'm not amazed with this region. Actually, I should say that to be honest. The beauties of central Iran always makes me amazed and wondered. This infinite horizon and a really, really meaningful silence in the deserts of Iran makes this place so beautiful and fascinating for not only local people, but for us as travellers or ecologists and biologists who travel to this region. So the landscape looks like this quite a lot in central Iran. So you see low vegetation and also scattered rocky hills in that area. But also there are sometimes landscapes like these and you see scattered rocky mountains, but again really, really low vegetation because this area is really dry and in some parts semi dry habitat or ecosystem. So it's really harsh in terms of rainfall and you can find many green vegetation like west or north of Iran in this region. Central region is home to many different mammals and birds and also reptiles. This photo shows one of the beautiful species of this place, Gazella, in Iran. Of course, beside Gazella we've got Chinkara, but this Chinkara is different from the one that you find in India. These two are really specialist species to central region of Iran because they can run really fast in those steppy areas that you saw in the previous slides. And also one of the most magnificent cat species in Iran, Caracol. You see the color. It's just really, really camouflage to that area. It's just about Caracol. There are many amazing things like they can run really fast. They can also live in rocky mountains in central region. So they are really specialist cats for central region of Iran. And of course, not just Caracol, but central region got a wild sheep and also azeric wild ass that there are just two small population of them in Iran, one in central region and the other one in south of Iran. And you can find another population of azeric wild ass in Mongolia, but they are really, really endangered species in the world and they actually need urgent conservation actions to survive in the wild. And of course, azeric cheetah. The last remain population of azeric cheetah are existing in Iran now in central region. I should say probably they are less than 40 individuals in the wild. So they consider as critically endangered species in Iran and there are many different international conservation actions to maintain them in the wild, which is really important. This photo is really amazing. We got it recently in Turan Biosphere Reserve in Samnon province of Iran. We named this photo Hope because it's really hard to get... I mean, now in the situation of cheetahs in Iran, it's really hard for them to find each other in really long distances in mating seasons. And this photo, because of two cobs next to a mother, made us so excited and optimistic to just work more and more on maintaining these magnificent species in central Iran. I would like to show you a video that we got exactly in that same area during mating season. I hope it works here. I just would like to ask you to listen to the sounds carefully because it's really amazing. Oh, there's no sound? I just would like to ask you if... Is it possible to... Okay, perfect. The main thing about the sound is that this video has taken during mating season of azeric cheetah in Iran. And during this season, male individuals roaming in their territory and call in a really loud voice to find female individuals for mating. So I think one of the interesting things about this video is just that loud call from this male individual that we call it Kavuz. We named him Kavuz. And you saw in the video that he came to that tree, that's a gas tree. It's a specialist tree in central region. And then he smelled that tree because probably before him there was another azeric cheetah there. And then he smelled that tree. He sprayed his urine to that tree to just show that's his territory. And then it helps female individuals to find a male better. Persian ground jay, it's another endemic bird to central region. You find this species only in this region of Iran and not anywhere in the world. This is quite famous bird. And I can say it's kind of a symbol for local people in that area because they do lots of handicrafts in different villages around central region of Iran with the photo of Persian ground jay. And it's really interesting for tourists in that area. And another endemic endangered bird in central region is hubara, which actually this bird is endangered because of the pressure of hunting and selling this bird to other countries in Middle East because it's a quiet, important and really favourite bird for people in that region. So let's go to south, Persian Gulf and Oman Sea region. I think one of the most interesting things about south of Iran and Persian Gulf region is that there is a combination of rocky mountains and sandy beach in that area, which makes it so different to other sea regions in the world. So you see in this photo that there are mountains like that and also sandy beach next to the Persian Gulf. When we talk about Oman Sea or Persian Gulf, everyone think it should be just a sea with beaches next to that. But when you go to the west and it beats up to north of that region, you got these amazing landscapes with palm trees in them and really, really harsh rocky mountains which are home to Persian leopard, also hyena and other large carnivores in Iran. Persian Gulf and Oman Sea region because of the adjustment to sea got lots of different wetlands around that you can find many different migratory bird species in that area. So this is Pelican on Hormoz Island, very close to Bandarapos in south of Iran. And there is also Falamingos who are migrating again from north to south and stay there and leave the country during autumn. One amazing thing about this photo that I really like that is you can see the city in landscape because this photo has taken on an island very close to Bandarapos city. So you have Persian Gulf and in the landscape the high buildings in white which actually makes it really interesting that very close to a large city like Bandarapos, you got wetlands like this with amazing birds who are living there. And of course it's Persian Gulf and Oman Sea region actually home to two important species of the country, gondol crocodile and azureic blackbird. About gondol crocodile, I should say that there is just a population of thousands of them in whole they range in the world from Sri Lanka in west to Iran in east and also azureic blackbird is a critically endangered species in Iran that we probably have a really small population of 100 individuals in south of Iran. They both need really, really urgent conservation actions to survive and I think these two amazing species make south of Iran really interesting for tourists but it's actually really hard to find azureic blackbird in the wild but because people know this ecosystem is habitat to these species it makes it so interesting for them. And the smallest wild sheep species in the world that there is a population of them in Persian Gulf region of Iran. This is Laristan wild sheep and it's quite famous among trophy hunters because as I said that's the smallest species of wild sheep and it makes it for the trophy hunters really interesting. This photo has taken in West, in Hormozgan province of Iran. This is a really amazing big male individual that you can see the horns are really big because you can guess the age of each individual based on the length of the horn. So from this photo you can quite guess that it's an old big male individual. Okay we talked a bit about different ecoregions in Iran and also this amazing biodiversity but there are also threats. Wherever you got wildlife and biodiversity next to people there are threats on this biodiversity as well. So I would like to mention four main groups of threats on biodiversity in Iran. I would like to start with soil degradation because of over grazing and also full wood harvesting in different places in Iran. I took this photo in Zagros region. You see a farmer, a shepherd in that photo with a herd in a really, really highland of Zagros mountain. Also I should say outside the reason of grazing in that region. So these kind of activities put lots of pressure on biodiversity more specifically vegetation of that region. And in this photo you see again I should take it, I should take took that photo, I'm sorry, I took that photo from west of Iran again. Okay, you see the oak forest in Zagros region and because of over harvesting of trees in that region I should say another main threat to biodiversity in that area. And there's also lots of potential productivity of different lands in Iran due to over cutting and plowing of slopes. This photo has taken in north of Iran in Hirkanian forest. I was there with that local guy during a project in north of Iran. I got shocked when we arrived that area. He was talking to us that all those landscapes used to be part of Hirkanian forest, million years forest in north of Iran. But because of urban and rural development and also extending of agricultural farms we see that the landscape is destroying every day slowly, slowly. And I think especially in northeast of Iran we need to put lots of urgent conservation actions if we want to maintain Hirkanian forest in that area. Illegal hunting and poaching is another threat of biodiversity in Iran like many different places in the world. So you see a road here in this photo and also there are poaching on carnivores in some places in Iran because between carnivores and also I mean most of the time villagers in different areas there are conflicts because they keep livestock in that area, they graze the livestock in middle of forests so there are always a conflict between them and as a consequence these things happen to carnivores in different regions. And the last one, it's over construction of roads and mines and other human activities in different regions. This photo is from Golestan National Park. You see that a road is crossing the forest in that area. This is one of the main biggest roads which connect Tehran, the capital of Iran to Mashhad which is another large city of Iran. This is one of the biggest threats to Golestan National Park and its biodiversity in north of Iran. Unfortunately there's nothing that local community can do about this threat. It should be something from government and law enforcement if you want to stop these kind of threats on biodiversity in that region. And this photo is again from west of Iran. These constructions in west are building to farm fish next to the rivers. This is Karun River, one of the main rivers in west of Iran which is coming all the way from top of west of Iran to Persian Gulf. So it's one of the main resources for not only the fish but also the villagers and local communities in that area. But because of these constructions that actually many villagers and local people are dependent on these kind of livelihoods in that area there are pressure of chemicals and these constructions on biodiversity in that area. And of course when we talk about Iran we have drought in Iran. Lack of rainfall in different places and of course we should know Iran is a dry semi dry country in many places. We have problems like these. This is Oremia Lake in north west of Iran one of the most famous lakes in Iran that we actually I should say lost more than 95% of this lake during just like maybe 10 or 15 years which is just a tragedy I think. Due to extending agricultural farm next to many lakes in Iran to just extend rice farm or other fruit farmlands we lost many lakes like this in Iran. This photo I think this photo is a really serious alarm for all of us to just be aware about the consequences of these kind of activities in Iran. Now you see that this is a salty lake and because we lost many many we lost the main area of that now there are threats on villages and cities around this lake because of the salt winds during hot seasons and then now this is why many people in that area are just shouting on government during these seasons and asking them to do something to bring this lake back. Talking about all these threats should we say this is the end? This is the end of the war or Iran or every places that we got by diversity and threats at the same time? I would like to say no. This is when conservation is just coming around and it's about using the natural resources in a voice way. We can define conservation as like this because when we say we want to use natural resources wisely it means we should have a really long term sustainable plan for exploiting resources in different ways. So it makes it really important and at the same time really difficult to implement on the ground because it makes it a really interdisciplinary issue because at the same time you are not just dependent on biology or ecology you need economies, politicians, sociologists and also psychologists in some cases to combine all this knowledge together and bring up a solution, a sustainable long term solution to exploit natural resources in a sustainable way. So what do we do as conservationists in Iran or what conservationists is about in Iran? I would like to talk about the idea of nature school in Iran. The whole idea behind nature school is bringing kids back to the nature. I'm sure you feel that we are getting disconnected from nature every day because we are surrounded with the cities there's no time for us to go to nature and experience how it would be to sleep one night in mountains or be in a forest that we can feel there's a carnivore like leopard in that or lynx or other herbivores. We are really disconnected with nature nowadays and it's getting worse and worse. One of the main solutions to solve this problem is working with kids, bringing them back to the nature and nature school is a place for kids to come there, be in nature, even touch the animals and feel how it works to be part of the nature, how it looks like. Because sometimes they also forget what is a butterfly, they have no idea how it looks like or what should it be in nature. The idea of nature schools in Iran has started since four years ago but thanks to this great man, Abdul Hossein Abahabzadeh who founded this idea in Iran, after four years now we have more than 50 nature schools in 20 provinces in Iran which is absolutely amazing and of course more than 100 facilitators to work with kids in the nature schools. I'm really optimistic and hopeful about the future of nature schools in Iran because to be honest I see the future of, I don't want to say conservation but maintaining all the beauties of nature in the hands of next generation. And there are also some campaigns in urgent situations like maintaining Asia Degchida in Iran. So as I told you, there's a population less than 40 individuals are there in the void. We don't have enough time to negotiate with government or convince different groups or parties in the country to sit together and make a decision to conserve them. So that's the time of action and we need people to help us. This campaign has started three months ago and one famous actress in Iran that you see in the photo tried to actually launch this campaign and asked people to help financially to get more than 80,000 pounds to relocate some of the main ranges from Turan National Park one of the main habitats of Asia Degchida to outside that because it's a national park and threats from livestock grazing and actually shepherds and also shepherd dogs in that region are the main threats on Asia Degchida. I should say this campaign is quite successful now and we got more than 90% of that support we needed and we expected so hopefully within three or four months we will be able to buy those range lands from the livestock keepers to run biosphere reserve and just relocate them and have more space for Asia Degchida in that region. So when we talk about conservation there's of course activities on the ground. You see some of my colleagues in these photos in this slide it's not just working with rangers and training them with different monitoring methods. It's also about setting camera traps to monitor your target species in different areas and also rapid survey or long term surveys in harsh areas like south of Iran and when it comes to wildlife it's also about water in dry areas as well. So we managed to make some water resources and man-made water resources for wildlife in dry areas which is in Iran it's a really, really important action to make sure that they don't have to come close to the villages to get access to water and be under threats of poaching. And about women in conservation I really wanted to talk about that. There are more women who are working on the ground in conservation in Iran. And I should say among young generation these interests about working as a conservationist or biologist are increasing these days because of all the different courses at the universities and also different issues and threats on environmental issues in Iran. So there are my colleagues who are working with rangers training them and be in different areas to work on different species. But who do conservation in Iran? It's not just about Iran. When it's about conservation it actually we should consider government, people, local communities and all the groups who can contribute to do conservation. In Iran of course we got government, actually department of environment as a governmental body that the president and vice president are in charge of making decisions and law enforcement about this department in Iran. And department of environment is a bridge between people and government in Iran. And of course we got local communities that we should definitely work very close with them to make sure that really sustainable livelihoods are happening among them to make sure that there are less threats on biodiversity in different areas. And of course rangers and NGOs which are working closely together on solving some environmental issues or problems in Iran. I wanted to introduce you my team in Iran. There are young, dedicated, passionate conservationists who are working in different regions now and I should say I actually work with all of them now in Iran. It's just really hard to be a conservationist in Iran and work in an NGO but they all have a high value to save and maintain nature which actually make all of us really optimistic and hopeful to work as conservationists. When it comes to us, to people, how we can help nature to survive or how we can help biodiversity or wildlife to live next to us. I think it's not just about conservationists or government. It comes to our everyday life decisions. I think I believe the whole world is a connected system and all of us as individuals can make a huge difference by our everyday life decisions. For example, when we live in London, trying to be aware of the impact of plastic bottles or single-use plastic bottles is one thing that all of us can consider. It's not just about conservationists. Or when it comes to food, being aware of how this food produce in different areas in the world, how it imports to our country and how we can buy it or use it is one of the other things that we all can consider and be aware of that. So it's about all of us. We all individually can have a huge impact if we just be aware of environmental issues, talk about it, try to just be a little bit knowledgeable about different biodiversity in our country, not even in the whole world, but just be aware of these things that can help us to have more impact on the future of biodiversity and nature in the world. I would like to thank two of the main photographers of the photos that you can also follow their pages to see other amazing photos of Iran's nature and biodiversity, if you like. Of course, you can visit the website of one of the important environmental NGOs in Iran. You are all young, you have plenty of time to do lots of volunteering and you can visit Persian Wildlife website to see if there's an opportunity for you to be a volunteer in Iran and do something for Iran's nature. Thanks so much for your attention. It was so nice.