Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Nooreddin Mona on Tuesday warned against speedy destruction of Iranian forests. He said a regional project was endorsed to explore the genetic resources of forests in the Near East including Iran. Talking to IRNA, he said based on the project, forests in Iran will be explored and examined as well. According to the FAO official, the project has been endorsed recently with the objective of improving data resources on forests’ genetic resources in the Near East and North Africa including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen. He said Iran is regarded as one of the world’s 70 developing countries with a thin forest coverage the forests of which are disappearing more rapidly than other parts of the world.