In an AHR Roundtable, Peter Perdue noted, “‘Crisis’ is a moving target . . . Environmental historians should at least try to look behind the immediate issues to longer-term structural and cultural changes” (2008, p. 1454). The water crisis, or bohran-e ab, is one of the most pressing concerns for Iranians today. It and other environmental issues occupy a prominent place in popular discourse and the agreement (in principle) on the necessity of addressing environmental problems spans Iranian political factions. Although some voices place the blame for Iran’s environmental problems directly on the policies of the Islamic Republic, environmental change, its connection with both state policies and societal practices, and the recognition of these issues predates 1979, as Sadeghian (2016) demonstrated in relation to Iranian forestry. Unfortunately, Sadeghian’s article is one of the few studies centering pre-revolution environmental policy in Iran and so our understanding of contemporary Iranian environmentalism’s historical context is considerably lacking. I argue a deeper historical treatment of Pahlavi Iran shows that many Iranian policy makers recognized the environmental issues facing their country before the revolution (although environmental concerns did not have the popular currency they do today) and the particular concerns of Iran’s early environmentalists demonstrate some phenomena like dust storms, drying lakes, and air pollution have roots in the pre-revolution period. My source materials include the memoirs of Eskandar Firouz (Pahlavi Iran’s pre-eminent environmentalist), records of Iranian participation in international organizations (e.g. International Union for Conservation of Nature), academic publications (e.g. the journal Mohit-e Zist), and legislative texts. Surveying these documents will allow us to see exactly what environmental problems Iran’s early environmentalists believed were most urgent, what causes they perceived, and what solutions they proposed in response. Additionally, I hope to identify the logic(s) under-girding their environmental conceptualizations in order to add texture to Abe’s (2013) brief linking of pre-revolution environmentalism with the broader modernist sentiments of Iran’s technocratic class. A more complete understanding of the environmental concerns of the Pahlavi period allows us to better identify the continuities and discontinuities in policies, actions, and logics before and after 1979. This historicization of the environmental problems facing Iranians today will provide more context for current solutions put forward by Iranian scientists and politicians. This project is only one aspect of the under-studied environmental history of modern Iran and I hope for it to serve as a reminder of the need for more research.