The city of Yerevan will soon turn from a half-desert to a desert. This
is warning by ecologists and they are organizing petitions for
Armenians living in Armenia to demand that the government of the
Republic of Armenia, the present and former mayors of Yerevan, the
chief architect, The Ministry of Ecology, the Ministry of Health and
others to take on the responsibility of improving the situation. The
initiative is taken by the Armenian social-ecological party and the
Armenian Ecological Benevolent Fund. “168 hours” weekly had an
interview the president of the board of trustees of the fund and
president of the social-ecological party Armen Dovlatyan. The topic
concerned the issues of the overall situation of Armenia’s
ecology. The Armenian Social-Ecological Party was created in 1998 and
currently has 400 members. Besides being involved in solving ecological
issues, the party has also taken part in political processes, in
particular in the 1999 National Assembly elections with the majority of
the vote. However, they had lost. According to president of the
Social-Ecological party Armen Dovlatyan, the board for ecological
issues was created in 2001 with the support provided by the mayor of
Yerevan. Today, that board does not function. “It started when Albert
Bazeyan was mayor, then continued in the days of Robert Nazaryan. The
board used to gather frequently and discuss issues. We were presented
with 28 construction projects in the course of 3-4 months and 26 of the
projects were rejected. At the time, construction work got delayed
until later on, but then the board started meeting at all. However, the
board has not disbanded. I am currently writing a letter to the mayor
in order to re-establish the board. We have formed a coalition for the
preservation of the greeneries along with some NGOs called the “The
Greenery Preservation Union”. The union elected its own council.
Unfortunately, the council does not play any significant role in making
any practical decision for the city. No matter what happens, we must
keep fighting. For example, in this region we meet the people of
“Dalma”, conduct consultations about legalities, and write letters. A
case had been appealed to the court and the court had rejected that
case on August 10 of this year, claiming that the constitutional court
is competent to consider the government’s decisions invalid (resolution
# 1941A). However, the 1941A is a separate resolution. I don’t
understand how judge Lalayan turns the case into an examination of
qualification if he does not even know the laws? How does he accept
resolutions? Armen Dovlatyan said that there is a petition being
organized in Yerevan for the preservation of the greeneries. There are
already a thousand signatures. The petition is being done against the
mayor, the Prime Ministe and all officials who carry out these
operations and to appeal and present the case of preserving the
greeneries of the city as a state crime. “We are not only going to
invite the public as a the one taking on the suffering, but rather
representatives of international structures from the European Council
and the board of ecology of the European Union. If our local courts
reject the case or do not go along with what the law states, then we
hope to get help from the international structures in the European
court. If the greenery of any country forms less than 25% of the total
territory, then that is considered almost a desert according to
international standards. Until the 1990s, the forests of Armenia formed
12%. During the years of the Soviet Union, there were no productive
afforestations. Today, Armenia has become a wood-cutting and exporting
country. It exports the wood to Turkey, Iran, the Emirates, Georgia and
European countries. Some Armenian businessmen have moved from cutting
down trees to taking out the roots. This refers to the wood of oak and
hazelnut trees. The wood of those trees is the most expensive which
goes to European countries to make cars,” says Mr. Dovlatyan.
Armen Dovlatyan affirms that the Ministry of Ecology knows about what
is going on. “Soon, we are going to organize an action-a tour around
Yerevan. We are going to invite the President of Armenia, the Prime
Minister, the Ministers of Health and Ecology, the present and former
mayors with their structures, journalists and show them all the places
where trees have been cut down for construction. In front of everyone
present, we will ask the officials what law allowed them to pass
resolutions for the cutting down of trees. Inviting is easy, but will
the officals accept the invitation? “Well, we will send the
invitations, announce that via the media and suggest that the President
of Armenia choose the day suitable for him. According to ecology
standards, 20-25 square meters of green territory is accessible to each
resident of Yerevan. As of today, only 4 kilometers is accessible to
the resident of Yerevan. Until 1990, it was 16-17 kilometers,
basically, all cutting down of trees is out of the question. However,
today our businessmen and architects with their brilliant minds are
creating their stores without taking into consideration the greeneries.
They forget that they are hurting themselves while doing that. If we go
to the forests of Dilijan, Ijevan, Noyemberyan, we will be horrified by
just the look of them. Those forests are being cut down by the
sponsorship provided by the Minister of Ecology, the high-level
military officials, officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and
other leaders of political parties. Some representatives of the
Dashnaktsutyun (Federalist poltical party) have destroyed 300 hectors
of the forest in the border of Azerbaijan the Tavush region. As for the
Dalma fields, which make up 533 hectors of land, one time that was
about 790 hectors of land in the preservation field. The President
announced that the Dalma fields must be restored, but at the same time
the Dalma fields became 356 hectors according to documents of which 150
will be used for construction purposes. In other words, the remaining
parts are the foreseen villas, greenery for the summer cottages so that
it could be cooled. The same is going on in the forests of Nork. The
forests are burning slowly, the irrigation system has been eliminated.
The places where there is irrigation, the water does not come. This is
a special type of politics.”
In response to our question of who does the cutting down of the
forests-individuals or organizations, Mr. Dovlatyan responded: “The
documents stating the ownership of the territorities is difficult to
get. Some of the documents are anonymous but the real owners of the
territories are other people. We know that some lands of the Dalma
fields belong to Ruben Hayrapetyan, Khoren Hovhannisyan owns some under
the name of the “Pyunik” (Phoenix) club, some belong to the
representatives of “Frank Mulier Armenia” and Tavros Galshoyan for
building villas. There are some rumors going around that there are also
cutting down of trees going on in Tsitsernakabert and everyone is
stating the names of Gagik Tsarukyan and Hrant Vardanyan.