Of course, during these past years the gasification program made the wood trade level come down, but it has not ended yet. Some families of Yerevan still heat their apartments with wood. Especially citizens living in suburbs of Yerevan and poor families that could bring some wood from their villages use wood to heat their apartments. Also those rich people use wood, who are able to pay money only for enjoying the view of fire in the fire place. It turns out that wood is a source for poor people and meanwhile delight for rich people. Nowadays 1 c.m. wood price is about 20.000 dram in Yerevan. The guy that sells wood not far from “Tashir” said that wood trade wasn’t open and widespread. “Now it is prohibited to cut trees, but there are people who do that illegally”, -he said. The wood that he sold was brought from the forests of Dilijan.
Head of forest protection body Robert Petrosyan says that they have a right to prevent people from cutting trees illegally. And the illegal wood that appears in cities and apartments is not their problem, it is the problem of environmental protection state inspection.
According to the information of environmental protection ministry there were 34 cases of environmental violations during the last nine months, probably most of which were cases of cutting trees. The compensation sum covered 81.673 k dram. Environmental protection minister Vardan Ajvazyan informed us that the number of inspections had been increased, as well as the number of tickets for several million drams. He also approved tha fact that forest control service had been given to the ministry of environmental protection. But he didn’t inform us whether the number of cases of cutting trees illegally had been increased or not in comparison with the period when the exploitation service was under the cover of their ministry.
“Please leave “Armforest” alone, ok? About 600.000 people live not far from those forests and most of our forest trees are cut by them illegally. Look, we can’t say that it is loyal when the government provides only 1.000 dram for 1 hectare territory protection”, -said environmental protection minister Vardan Ajvazyan.
For your information: “Armforest” was removed to the agricultural ministry from the ministry of environmental protection, but the control was given to the ministry of environmental protection. These two bodies informed us that they did everything to stop illegal cutting. Anyway it is impossible to stop this process at all because wood business is a good business for both construction and heating.
Prohibited fishing
The environmental protection state revision body has confiscated 235 fishing facilities and 570 fish during the first nine months of 2005. By the order of the minister of environmental protection, fishing is prohibited starting from September up to December 25. But hardly there is anyone who can say that during all this period there weren’t fish from Sevan in the markets of Yerevan. Environmental protection ministry press secretary Artsroun Pepanyan informed us that their inspector has no other right but to confiscate the goods in these kinds of cases. But after relevant subprovisions are adopted concerning these kinds of cases they will also have a right to institute legal proceedings against those fishers. We visited some markets where they sold fish from Sevan. One of the sellers assured us that the fish was fresh.
“We hooked this fish in the morning. It is very fresh”, – said one of them. We asked a lady how they could hook fish in case it was prohibited by the law and she answered: “It is prohibited, but we do that”. “How did you bring it to Yerevan?” “We brough it here by singing”. “What about police? Didn’t they see your fish?” “They did. But we gave them money to let us bring this fish here. You can come here every day at about three o’clock and we wll give you fresh fish. Buy some fish, it is tasty. Look how good they are, you will not be mistaken”.
When I said that I had already bought some fish from the other seller she got happy and said: “O, you did good, she is my sister. Was she wearing white clothes? We brought this fish here together”.