Paradigmatic Analysis of Environmental Managementin Iran

Abstract

Iran has many critical environmental changes and challenges, especially in agricultural development. These challenges are due to land reform and subsequent modernization. The  mainpurpose  of  this  paper  is  to  analyze  the  paradigmatic  trend  ofagricultural environmental management of Iran. The study was accomplished through reviewing archival research findings as well as analyzing the content in different documents and worldwide databases. To do so, various global paradigm perspectives and strategies about the environmental management were reviewed. Moreover, by reviewing different environmental laws, rules, regulations, and activities in Iran, three distinct phases in environmental management, including 'enthusiasm for modernization activities (1962‐1974)', 'concerns about environmental issues (1974‐2005)', and 'crisis of environmental management (2005‐present)' were revealed. Thus, the most important problems leading to the unsustainable environment in the three phases and the reasons resulting in the failures of macropolicies were addressed. It is possible to declare that in‐appropriate paradigms within environmental management thinking, i.e., sustainability, as well as inconsistencies between the paradigms and strategies, could be traced in different periods. The findings provide the researchers with the fact that the dom‐inant perspective in environmental management is frontier eco‐nomics via emphasis on economics and fewer considerations over ecological problems. Accordingly, the environmental degra‐dation increased, via which the authorities were not successful in conducting collaborative systematic actions since the evidence represented the mere accomplishment of some sporadic strategies.As the pedagogical implications of the study, it should be assertedthat  a  basic  paradigm  shift  in  environmental  activities  fromtechnocentrism to ecocentrism seems to be necessary to achievesustainable agriculture.