Who Is Niloufar Bayani? UNEP Accepts Plea For Environmental Conservationist's Release

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) finally renews the plea for the safe return home of Niloufar Bayani and all the other environmental conservationists imprisoned in Iran ever since 2018.

In January 2018, Niloufar Bayani and seven other environmental conservationists who worked for the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation were imprisoned and sentenced to long prison time on the charges of espionage by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Who is Niloufar Bayani?

Bayani studied at McGill University in Montreal and Columbia University in New York. She worked in Geneva between 2012 and 2017 as a consultant for the United Nations Environment  Programme (UNEP).

• During her duration of work for UNEP in Geneva, between 2012 and 2017, Bayani was based at the International Environment House. She regularly made major contributions to activities of the Geneva Environment Network and other institutions based in Geneva and around the globe, leaving an excellent impression on all those she interacted with because of her expertise and charisma.
• Bayani had notably joined the UN teams on the ground after Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti in 2016. After which had returned to Iran to serve her nation and help in the advancement of its biodiversity conservation.
• She established a climate seminar series focused on increasing “climate literacy” and awareness about climate change issues in Iran. And started a series of climate-based seminars to work and reflect further on the issue of climate change.
• Bayani published an article in the Etemad News, recently on 1 February 2023, where she wrote about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for changing our destructive relationship with mother nature.
• When she was arrested, Bayani had been working in Iran for only as little as 6 months, to monitor the critically endangered Persian or Asiatic cheetah. Despite there being a major lack of evidence against the case on them, she was forced to spend 8 months in isolation and go through 1,200 hours of interrogation before finally being sentenced in February 2020 to ten years of jail time. She addressed the Iranian authorities during her trials and through letters, to denounce the torture she endured.
• Even after being in Jail, Bayani along with the recently released Fariba Adelkhah a Franco-Iranian researcher has continued her research and studies on environmental issues and given seminars related to climate issues for increasing awareness amongst her mates inside Evin prison regarding climate change issues.

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