
As part of our ongoing virtual eco-tour of the Middle East, this week’s journey is to Iran. Iran is a little further off than Jordan and Lebanon, but it is also an intriguing spot. And thanks to some information provided by Mohammad Memarian as a response to a Green Prophet post on MidEast Youth – a great regional website that promotes dialogue between people all over the Middle East – we’ve come to understand that while ecotourism is a pretty new idea in Iran, it is definitely developing fast.
According to Mohammad, he tells Green Prophet that a National Ecotourism Committee was established recently in Iran, but they have not run any national-level projects yet. Ecotourism in Iran currently consists mostly of travel agencies offering special eco-tours and the northern parts of Iran are especially popular among eco-tourists.
Here are some environmentally friendly tourism options for green visitors to Iran:
Ecotour Iran: Ecotour Iran, a leading tour operating company, cooperates with experts in the field of ecotourism. It runs the only official ecotourism center in Iran as well as training courses for ecotour leaders in the fields of zoology, ornithology, botany, geography, history, photography, outdoor sports, anthropology, and more. They offer a wide range of tours, some of which include bird watching and nature photography tours.
Iran Paradise is another company that says it offers eco tourism in Iran. Highlights of their 12 day/11 night eco-tour itinerary include visiting a variety of national parks, sleeping in tents, and viewing various aquatic, forest, and desert eco systems.


Let’s Go Iran: Let’s Go Iran is another tourism agency that offers a variety of eco-tours – skiing, diving, desert, and nomad tours. Highlights of the nomad eco-tour include a full day of camel riding in the desert followed by a delicious lunch of camel meat, camping overnight with the nomads in the Zagrus mountains, and trekking through mountains.
Read more about green happenings in the Middle East region:
All of us are aware of the high cost of energy these days, as well as the adverse ecological effects of using fossil fuels like petroleum and coal to run the coastal power plants that supply our electricity in Israel.
This is the first book I’ve read in a long time that I have felt so conflicted about.

Environmental and social change don’t always go together in green organizations, but the truth is that you can’t really make green changes without effecting society. Alternatively, some socio-economic groups just don’t have the resources to make costly (yet positive) environmental changes. As Jeff recently pointed out in his reaction to

