Challenges of Hamoon and strategies for rescue

Over the past decade, ponds in the Islamic Republic of Iran confront with serious threats. The reasons such as reducing the volume of water in the natural and human factors, entrance of various biological, chemical and physical pollutants in to environment of ponds, change of the use of pond’s lands, non-compliance of right of natural environments and water projects, lack of environmental considerations in the implementation of development projects, hunting and illegal fishing and smuggling causes these serious threats. Hamoon is the seventh pond in the world and the largest freshwater lake of our country and for various reasons has become the epicenter of the crisis moving sand dunes and causing numerous social and economic problems in the region. Thus the aim of this article is to describe the environmental challenges of Hamoon and policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in this field. This article is composed of two parts. The first part introduces the environmental importance of Hamoon and challenges in this area and in the second part we review the environmental policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in this area, and presents policies to deal with the challenges