@2024 Afarand., IRAN

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ISSN: 2538-4384    Geographical Researches 2020;35(2):117-128

Background
The environment management and natural fields' conservation needs to recognize the typology of environmental crimes as an aspect of environmental criminal laws.
Previous Studies
Mirkamali & Hajivand (2017) studied the prevention of environmental crimes in United Nations instructions. They realized such tips to prevent environmental damages can be very helpful. Hajivand et al. (2018) analyzed the government's criminal liability for environmental crimes in Iran. According to their results, civil societies' cooperation in environmental issues is highly recommended mainly through people's empowerment, provision of access for them, and supporting the non-governmental societal organizations. Abedi et al. analyzed environmental crimes in terms of economic issues. Heydarzadeh & Mozafari (2014) studied the prevention of environmental crimes in aquatic ecosystems and marine resources. Poorhashemi et al. (2016) evaluated the components and challenges in preparing criminal environmental indicators from the international perspective.
Aim(s)
This study aimed to recognize and classify various types of environmental crimes in Iran.
Research type
This is empirical research in terms of the purpose and desk review in terms of the data gathering method. It is analytical-descriptive research from the analysis point of view.
Research society, place and time
This research's statistical population includes the managers and experts in the legal department of the environment and natural resources administrations of the country's provinces, reliable veterinarians, conservation officers, experienced foresters, and environmental NGO members.
Sampling method and number
169 people were chosen as the samples using the purposeful sampling method.
Used devices&materials
The interviewing method and the questionnaire were used to collect data, and SPSS and Expert choice software were used for the analysis.
Findings by Text
The findings can be classified into the following categories. Environmental crimes classification According to the semi-structured interviews and coding results, environmental crimes in natural fields can be classified into three main macro factors, including environmental pollution, ecosystem degradation, and the extraction of the resources and their impact on biodiversity. These three classes can be divided into 8 Micro factors: air pollution, water resources pollution, contaminated waste, destruction of the jungles and rangelands, destruction of the lagoons and aquatic ecosystems, mountains and plains degradation, and damage to the wildlife and damage to the habitats. Moreover, 35 measures were determined for the micro factors (Table 3). Weighting and ranking environmental crimes according to their importance Environmental crimes' (macro and micro factors) importance from the elite's viewpoint was determined using pairwise comparison. According to figure 2, the most important crime among the micro factors is the destruction of the jungles and rangelands (with 0.755), and the least important one is air pollution (with 0.253). On the other hand, environmental crimes' final weight, which includes both macro and micro factors, was evaluated (Figure 3). Quantitative comparison of environmental crimes Comparative comparison of environmental crimes shows the most of the crimes between 2016 -2019 are related to the "ecosystem's degradation", "environmental pollution," and the "extraction of the resources and its impact on biodiversity", respectively. The results are shown in figures 4 and 5. Moreover, the following graph shows the comparative comparison of the studied period in terms of environmental crimes. The environmental crime commitment rate had been increasing from 2016 to 2019. In terms of the micro factors of environmental crimes, "water resources pollution" (with 58%), "soil pollution" (with 26%), and "air pollution" (with 16%) had been respectively the most common micro factors under environmental pollution macro factor class.
Main comparison to the similar studies
From the statistical point of view, the environmental macro crimes between 2016 and 2019 were "ecosystem destruction", "environmental pollution", and "the extraction of the resources and its impact on the biodiversity", respectively. This result is consistent with that of Hajivand et al. (2018). "land use changing" with 9.4% had been the most frequent crime commitment, which is consistent with the results of Hajivand et al. (2018) and Abedi et al. (2015). Environmental crime commitment, on the other hand, had an increasing trend between 2016 and 2019. Similarly, Abedi et al. (2015) found a similar increasing trend in their study. According to the results of the current study, more ecosystem diversity in a province leads to more environmental crime commitments, which are approved by Haydarzadeh & Mozafari (2014) results. As it is very difficult to differentiate between the deliberate and indeliberate crime commitment, the research studies the commitment to crime, which is a popular method in lots of researches on environmental rights such as SEHN (2008), Abedi et al. (2015), Lynch et al. (2015), Poorhashemi et al. (2016), and Pain (2003). The cognition of the incentives, reasons, and motivations making people commit environmental crimes can be very helpful in adopting prevention strategies to conserve the environment and natural resources, as is mentioned in the results of Hajivand et al. (2018). Abedi et al. (2015) believe the use of economic tools such as the green tax, marketable permissions, deposit-refund system, and environmental crimes are some of the measures that could improve the current situation.
Suggestions
Considering the number and variety of environmental crimes in Iran and the high rate of crimes committed in the provinces, it is necessary to take more serious steps to measure it.
Limitations
There is no limitation reported.
Conclusions
According to the results, environmental crimes in Iran can be divided into three macro factors, including "environmental pollution", "ecosystem degradation", and "the extraction of the resources and its impacts on biodiversity'. These macro factors can be divided into eight micro factors: air pollution, water resources pollution, waste contamination, jungles and rangelands degradation, destruction of the aquatic ecosystems and lagoons, mountains' and plains' degradation, and damage to the wildlife and the habitats. Some measures are common in some micro factors, including garbage incineration, the extraction of the resources, changing the land use, timber smuggling, arson attacks, and mining.
Acknowledgments
None.
Conflict of interest
None.
Ethical Permissions
None.
Funding Sources
The current research is extracted from a Ph.D. thesis on examining Iran's judicial system in the prevention of environmental crimes carried out using personal funds.

TABLES and CHARTS

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