Environmental in most developing countries including Iran. It's role, however, is much more critical in these countries today than in the developed world. Promoting environmental knowledge and  enhancing public  awareness seem to be the most urgent goal in environmental protection in these countries. Environmental education implies a new way of thinking through which Man can live in harmony  with nature. In such a system, values, feelings, personal and professional responsibilities, and even people's behavior patterns, which will eventually all merge in social actions, must be realized in harmony with natural processes. One of the most essential sectors of environmental education is education at the higher level. The role of this sector includes training of needed specialists, extension of  knowledge, promotion of research, and provision of proper setting for societal development.

Significant population changes in Iran during recent decades, i.e., natural population increase, on the one hand, and mass migration of population from rural and small urban areas into large cities, on the other, have resulted into a tremendous rate of urbanization, which along with great need for industrialization, have caused an increasing trend of environmental degradation, which not only threatens the living conditions of the urban areas in the country, but also puts the critical and strategic natural resources at great risk.

As far as environmental conditions are concerned, Iran has been facing a critical situation throughout this century, far less than accepted standards of sustainability. The main reason for this environmental deterioration is clear the lack of public awareness, and also the lack of expertise to provide national planners and policy makers with appropriate knowledge to integrate environmental considerations into planning efforts and to mitigate the Center for Coordination of Environmental Studies was founded in 1973 at the University of Tehran, following the United Nation^'s Conference on Human Settlement which was held in Stockholm. Its aims and objectives were as follows:

1. Protection and restoration of the man-made and natural environment.

2. Protection and restoration of cultural and ecological heritage.

3. Enhancement of public awareness and general knowledge in the society.

4. Coordination of research activities of different institutions within the University of Tehran concerning environmental studies.

5. Promotion of research on environmental issues.

During the decade of 1980, the Center has gained some valuable experiences and made significant achievements in the environmental fields. Lack of an adequate number of experts in the field, as well as the growing need for their serviced, however, forced the center to reconsider its goals and activities. Consequently, the general policy of the Center was revised, and educational activities at post-graduate levels were added to the previous goals. Therefore, on March 1989, the name of the Center was officially changed to the "Institute for Environmental Studies", and subsequently, in 1994 the Institute was finally renamed to the Graduate Faculty of Environment.