There are about 35 preserves which make up a total of 110.000 hector
territory in Armenia. The preserves are under the environmental
protection ministry’s control. The staff involved in the protection of
these territories consists of 450 people. In 2005, the government
provided 187.828.000 dram from the state budget for the purpose of
protecting these 35 preserves. “Shikahogh” got 9 million drams from the
total sum. “Shikahogh” has 10.000 hector territory of thick forest. The
famous “Mtnadzor forest” is also located in the territory of
“Shikahogh”. The 30 members of “Shikahogh” staff take care of the
preserve. The salary of the head of the preserve Ruben Mkrtchyan is
24.000 dram, the territorial forester’s salary is 15.000 dram, and the
inspector’s – 13.000 dram.
“I am ashamed to say how much money I get when someone asks me. I
cannot even make my inspector work more diligently, go far, stay there
longer, because we need money for this. There are accidents often,
because there are many rocky areas in the forest and sometimes they
fall down and get injured. There is no compensation for the medical
expenses. For instance “Armforest” works in parallel with us, but the
salary of their director is 70.000 dram and the salary of their
forester is 35.000 dram. But the preserves look better than the
forests. This is absurd”,- says R.Mkrtchyan.
The foresters go to the forests by their cars or by horses. The
government doesn’t take care of this either. They don’t give money even
for gas. One of the “Shikahogh” foresters, Andranik, goes to the forest
by his own car. He complains that he doesn’t even get money for
repairing the broken parts of the car.
“How long can this go on? I can’t even take care of my family and my
car with the money I get”,- says Andranik. We were informed by the
ministry of environmental protection, that the government was going to
increase the money for protection of preserves by two in 2006, making
it up to 367,5 million drams. “Shikahogh” will get 22,5 million drams.
Accordingly, the salaries will be increased twice, for instance the
inspector will get about 25.000 dram. The ministry officials may
consider this rise in salary as satisfactory, but the truth is that it
is not enough for someone working as a protector of preserves. Of
course the staff will be more careful with the forest in case of
getting more money, and what is more important, it will not have
“hidden interests” from the forest. But generally the total sum for the
preserve protection is amazing: $50.000 USD per year. And our ministers
don’t hesitate to pay that much and sometimes more money to buy cars
for them.
