Last Saturday marked the third unity tree planting event. After the first tree plantingы in the Syunik and Tavush Marzes of Armenia, the “Unity Tree Planting” committee started the forestation of the Kanaker-Zeytun community, in particular the park near Victory Park.
The staff working for the “Forestation and Improvement” company, who are always involved in forestation, were not too pleased with the third tree planting event. They believe that they spent too much time showing off rather than actually planting trees.
“They were all happy, eating, drinking and making speeches. I don’t know what they are so happy about. Start planting the trees, let’s see what we get out of it, and then we will all celebrate. You must first do the job and then celebrate as much as you want,” says one of the workers.
The same workers complained about the poorly organized tree planting. They say that the trees had to be planted in a straight line and the distance had to be equal so that the forest would look normal.
“They simply picked up the shovel, dug holes and planted trees everywhere. Are they doing this just to show the event on television, or do they actually think about the future?” complained one worker.
The “official” part of the tree planting in Kanaker-Zeytun lasted nearly 2 hours. One hour was entirely dedicated to making speeches and other festivities. After chief prosecutor of Armenia Aghvan Hovsepyan and Mayor of Yerevan Yervand Zakharyan planted their trees, they set off for the Malatia-Sebastia community along with the “Unity Tree Planting” committee. During one of the speeches, which welcomed the participants and placed high significance on the meaning of unity tree planting, somebody said “the ones cutting the trees are not planting them”. The tree planting was expected to continue throughout the day in Victory park and around the Kanaker-Zeytun community. Participants were supposed to plant 9,600 trees, of which 2500-2800 were supposed to be in Victory Park. The quarter-municipality had been able to get some of the trees and had provided some help to the “Unity Tree Planting” committee. Head of the Kanaker-Zeytun quarter-municipality assured everyone that 30,000 trees would be planted in the community by the end of the year.
Although Mayor of Yerevan Yervand Zakharyan doesn’t know what kind of tree he has planted, however he is certain that it will grow. His tree planted last year grew. In response to the question as to how he feels when he plants a tree and sees someone else cut trees in order to build an elite building with the money provided by the municipality, Mr. Zakharyan said:
“I am not that pessimistic. If trees are cut somewhere, more trees will grow. Besides the unity tree planting, the municipality and the communities will help plant more trees. We plan on organizing tree planting weeks where we will all plant 80-90,000 trees together. Last year we planted 32,000.”