This video depicts a confrontation between environmental activists and Syunik governor Surik Khachatryan in Kajaran (the video is in Armenian).

Basically they are saying what I wrote in my previous post, emphasizing that the extracted copper and the profits associated with its sale on the market will go to Germany, where the parent mining company is [...]]]>

This video depicts a confrontation between environmental activists and Syunik governor Surik Khachatryan in Kajaran (the video is in Armenian).

Basically they are saying what I wrote in my previous post, emphasizing that the extracted copper and the profits associated with its sale on the market will go to Germany, where the parent mining company is based, and that the Armenia economy as well as the countless village inhabitants that will be displaced, won’t reap any benefit from the mining.

The woman wearing the hat is the maverick Mariam Sukhudyan, but unfortunately I cannot identify the man in the camouflage jacket. Mariam is certainly an inspirational woman and she is the single most effective spokesman for badly needed change in this country — change in the mindset and the corrupted values fostered by so many politicians here.

Towards the end of the video he called her a dragonfly and purportedly said that something “bad” would happen to her if she continued her protest (it was not audible but appeared in print).

Her continued efforts (as well as those of her teammates) will undoubtedly spark a fire in the hearts of many Armenians to stand up for themselves. It’s just a question of when.

One thing is certain for many people not just in Syunik but in the minds of many here in Yerevan — this guy has to go and this project must be stopped. He can barely defend himself and can’t even speak proper Armenian. Being born in the States I was not educated in Armenia and mostly self-taught in the language, yet it seems I can speak better Armenian than he can. The video is testament to how utterly uneducated Khachatryan and undoubedly many other people in government are.

Kudos to these brave activists. May their crucial work continue unabated.

Yesterday an article was published by RFE/RL confirming that a controversial plan to exploit gold mines near Lake Sevan’s shores was going ahead as planned. And supposedly the government is uninformed about it.

Villagers in the area are rightly up in arms about it since Lake Sevan has already [...]]]>

Photo of Sotk gold mine courtesy RFE/RL

Yesterday an article was published by RFE/RL confirming that a controversial plan to exploit gold mines near Lake Sevan’s shores was going ahead as planned. And supposedly the government is uninformed about it.

Villagers in the area are rightly up in arms about it since Lake Sevan has already been jeopardized by toxic waste flowing in from polluted rivers. The environmental threat could get a lot worse if this Russian mining company, GeoProMining, continues forward with its profit-seeking ventures damning the future of Armenian ecology in the wake of its efforts.

Here’s an excerpt:

The area around Sotk has substantial gold deposits that are controlled by an Armenian subsidiary of the Russian industrial group GeoProMining. The company called GPM Gold started building an ore crusher there in February. About two dozen workers could be seen at the construction site on Tuesday.

Environmentalists accuse GPM Gold of violating an Armenian law that bans any manufacturing activity in the vicinity of Sevan that involves toxic emissions. They also say that work on the facility got underway without a mandatory authorization from the Armenian Ministry of Environment Protection.

Such an authorization can be obtained only as a result of an impact assessment conducted by ministry experts. A ministry spokesman, Artsrun Pepanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that GPM Gold never asked the ministry to gauge environmental consequences of ore-crushing operations at Sotk.

…

Last November, the Armenian parliament’s Audit Chamber urged the government to revoke the company’s operating licenses for what it called mismanagement and serious legal violations. GeoProMining rejected the accusations and said it will take the parliamentary body to court.

The Armenian government has yet to respond to the recommendation made by the Audit Chamber. The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on Wednesday that it is still looking into the chamber’s arguments.

Hetq has written extensively about the environmental risks facing Lake Sevan and its environs as well as in other regions of Armenia. Unfortunately Hetq’s archive section is under development after the relaunch of the web site, but I did manage to find some cached articles when doing a search. Below is a segment written by Astghik Khachatryan from April 2009:

Simon Papayan, Deputy Minister for Nature Protection, stated to the participants that his office has never received any official correspondence from GeoProMining. He added that, “Article 10 of the “Lake Sevan Law” prohibits such operations at the Sevan basin and we are guided by this law. In the past, such a petition was made when the mine belonged to the Indians but we denied their request.”

When asked by “Hetq” what then was reviewed at the March 2 meeting, Mr. Papayan responded, “There was no review meeting. There was a reception where the company presented its vision of how to operate the mine site.”

So in terms of lack of communication, nothing has changed in two years at all. The government still turns a blind eye to what’s going on in Sotk.

We’re talking about Lake Sevan here, the pride and joy of Armenia, one of the most revered vacation spots in the country. Lake Sevan is legendary all over the world, and thousands of Armenians in the diaspora who have yet to visit Armenia, including my brother who was named in honor of that natural wonder, only dream of seeing it. Now the government is standing idly by as the lake faces total destruction. Fish supplies have already dwindled and some subspecies have even gone extinct due to overfishing.

Here’s an excerpt from a follow-up article written by the same reporter in June 2009:

At a press conference held today Boris Gabrielyan, Director of Institute of Hydro-Ecology and Ichthyology of the National Academy of Sciences stated that Lake Sevan no longer has viable fish stocks for commercial use.

He said that besides a fish locally called “karas”, an undesirable species that competes with others for food and habitat, there are few other native species that reproduce naturally.

Mr. Gabrielyan said that two subspecies of Lake Sevan “ishkhan” fish has disappeared all together.

He pointed to the fact that this wasn’t the case 100, 50 or even as late as 10 years ago.

“The government is allocating funds to restock certain species with 3 year-old fingerlings. But their efforts are mostly in vain since much of the restocked fish, once they reach adulthood, are illegally being trapped and fished for commercial purposes. There is no adequate oversight,” Mr. Gabrielyan argued.

Referring to plans by GeoProMining to build a processing plant for Sotk gold on the shores of Lake Sevan, Mr. Gabrielyan said that their studies of the matter or continuing but that they hadn’t given a green light for the project.

So there you have it. No oversight by the government while Armenian businessmen do whatever they want at the expense of the livelihood of rural citizens barely getting by to earn a living, not to mention irreversible environmental damage. Some people are giving polluted water to their cattle due to the reckless dumping of toxic waste. And no one in the government seems to care. The recklessness goes on unabated. No one in politics seems to be complaining about it–either in pro-government or opposition camps. Once word gets out that the operations indeed go forward as planned tourism to Sevan will taper off. And the reason for this catastrophe is the same story: “The country’s not a country.” When does it start to become one?

Usually [...]]]> This morning I was awakened by the patter of a rain shower, the second one in a week. It hadn’t been raining for the entire summer, which was brutally hot. For the most part the temperature was averaging in the high 90s Fahrenheit for two consecutive months. I don’t remember it being hotter in Yerevan.

Usually there are less cars on the road during and after the rain. I used to attribute that to people afraid to get their cars dirty or simply being unconfident about cruising in wet road conditions. This morning, though, there were the usual number of vehicles on the road from what I noticed. When people really need to get somewhere, seems they don’t hesitate to drive any more.

With the rain comes a fine grain dust. I’ve only seen dusty rain in Armenia. While the rain naturally helps to clean the air, it doesn’t do much to curb the dust problem. Once it dries, it’s back up in the air again, ready to coat everything in its reach.

My car is always caked with dust after a rainstorm. Logically you would think it would have the opposite effect. In Boston, where I’m originally from, you can count on the rain to do a decent job with washing down the car, but not in Yerevan. Actually, the only memory I have of the precipitation actually having a cleaning effect was when I drove through a rain and hail storm in Vayots Dzor, on my way to Jermuk last year. The Niva looked like it had just come out of the car wash.

As I write this from the office where I work on Gomidas Avenue, the blinding sun is attempting to break through the dense, billowy clouds. It won’t last for very long though because it’s still generally overcast and supposedly will remain so throughout most of the weekend according to the forecast. But weather conditions change fairly quickly here, so you can never tell. It makes living in Armenia all the more fascinating.

That decision [...]]]> I just read an article on RFE/RL reporting that the main financier of the proposed environmentally devastating mining project in Armenia’s Teghut Forest has put a hold in transferring funds. The Russian bank VTB was set to provide the Armenian Copper Program (ACP) with a $280 million loan to get started with mining projects.

That decision was mostly if not entirely based on protests by Armenian environmentalist groups lead by the Save Teghut Forest movement.

RFE/RL writes:

The country’s leading environment protection groups and other non-governmental organizations have for years been campaigning against plans by the Armenian Copper Program (ACP) mining company to develop a massive copper and molybdenum deposit in the Lori region. The Teghut deposit is estimated to contain 1.6 million tons of copper and about 100,000 tons of molybdenum.

The project, if implemented, will lead to the destruction of 357 hectares of rich forest, including 128,000 trees. Critics say that would wreak further havoc on Armenia’s green areas that have already shrunk dramatically since the 1990s.

This is fantastic news for advocates of protecting Armenia’s fragile ecosystem. However, residents of that area in northern Armenia may not be cracking open the champagne just yet. ACP had promised to create 1,400 new jobs and build new schools. But many Armenian corporations never make due on their promises, especially related to charitable or benevolent undertakings that benefit society. Vivacell is one such company immediately coming to mind that does good, including producing public service announcements on television that campaign against littering. Personally, I’m all for job creation in rural areas on Armenia, but not at the expense of forests, which are slowly but surely being eradicated. Nevertheless, something else has to be planned for job creation if the project never comes to fruition, although it’s hard to believe that it won’t.

This victory is huge. It just shows that lobbying and protesting by special interest advocate groups can change things detrimental to society at large in their favor. It will encourage thousands of Armenian citizens to start struggling for what they believe in, despite threats of being beaten or arrested. It means that people are once again finding the courage and inspiration to stand up for themselves.

Kudos to the Armenian environmentalists. By all means, don’t give up the fight!

All photos of Aghveran, Kotayk, Armenia by Christian Garbis

Here’s the full report:

“I saw the smashed street lamps. When I looked hard, I realized that next to each smashed street lamp there are [...]]]> Yesterday Hetq Online printed a disturbing, even perplexing report of trees being cut in Tsitsernakaberd Park, not far from the Genocide Memorial. Several lamps that light the walkways there were smashed as well.

Here’s the full report:

“I saw the smashed street lamps. When I looked hard, I realized that next to each smashed street lamp there are stumps of newly cut down trees.” This alert was raised by Tigran Mangasaryan, the publisher of National Geographic Traveler in Armenia.

He spends each morning in Tsitsernakaberd with his friends. For the past few days he paid attention to the smashed lamps along the street leading to the Genocide Memorial. “I saw dozens of stumps along the road and a small fire trampled under feet, nothing else, neither branches, nor chips, nor sawdust, nothing. I got the impression that somebody cut down the trees, took them away under cloud of night without leaving any traces. That’s why all the lamps are smashed,” Tigran Mangasaryan said.

The photos taken by Tigran Mangasaryan distinctly display all the traces of this crime. This material is simultaneously an alert for the RoA Ministry of Nature Protection . We think that the Ministry of Nature Protection represented by the State Environmental Inspectorate must examine this case and take proper measures.

Why are such things still happening? During the “dark and cold years” of the early 1990s while war was being raged in Nagorno-Karabagh and Armenians were contending with an energy blockade, people were burning whatever they could find to keep warm during record-breaking frigid winters. That included trash, plastic bags, books, rubber soles, and of course, freshly cut wood from parks and the forest on the Nork-Marash hill, which no longer exists.

It was regrettable that the trees were cut, and Yerevan citizens are still paying for their deeds today by living in a dusty city void of any decent parks containing no cafes and illegal structures. Yet gas lines supply residential buildings all over the city now.  It took a while but now there is no part of Yerevan–unless I am mistaken–where such lines have not been installed so that residents can install relatively affordable, natural gas-burning heaters imported from Iran.

Let’s say for instance that drifters or homeless people were responsible. If they were, they would also have some kind of semi-permanent shelter in the park, where there’s plenty of areas to take refuge. That means there would probably be someone hiding in the brush there who was responsible. But the article doesn’t mention that there were signs of such a scenario.

Second of all, that area is well-lit during the evenings, since they installed bright, modern street lamps nearby the Kievyan Bridge and Halabyan Street, so it would be difficult to notice someone who wasn’t dragging away trees, even during the evening with taxis and other vehicles racing around. Even if those responsible descended the other way down the hill near the Hrazdan Stadium they would have most certainly been seen. So whoever did this was either very lucky to have not been caught red handed or probably just lit a bonfire in the park. But if that was the case, why weren’t the smoke and flames detected, and how did they manage to control the fire so that the forest didn’t burn?

I don’t know if anyone in city hall or the police department is actually bothering to ask these questions or if this incident will ever be resolved. But I have a hard time believing that the culprits are very elusive.

There is an excellent, concise article on Hetq Online briefing readers about the situation surrounding the threat to the Teghut Forest, located in the northern part of the Tavush region.

As you may know, the forest is scheduled to be felled in a business plan absurdly approved by Armenia’s Ministry of  Nature Protection. Three organizations which [...]]]>

There is an excellent, concise article on Hetq Online briefing readers about the situation surrounding the threat to the Teghut Forest, located in the northern part of the Tavush region.

As you may know, the forest is scheduled to be felled in a business plan absurdly approved by Armenia’s Ministry of  Nature Protection. Three organizations which will argue their case against the plan are going to court–they are the Transparency International Anti-corruption Center, the Vanadzor Office of the Helsinki Civic Assembly and EGODAR.

The article points out that 357 hectares of forest are to be cleared to make way for a copper mining project taken on by the Armenian Copper Programme (ACP). Many species of endangered wildlife that make Teghut their home have been cited in the “Red Book” published  International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and they even appear in the Armenian Red Book listing endangered species. Rare species of plants and trees will also be affected by the felling.

Here’s an excerpt:

Teghut and the surrounding area are home to several animal species listed in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red Book. There are also 7 bird, 7 mammal and 2 reptile species listed in the Armenian Red Book that make Teghut their home.

It should be safe to say that there is some kind of link between Armenian government officials and the management of ACP, as the Ministry of Nature Protection would logically never agree to such a plan assuming the people there were actually doing their jobs for the benefit of their own country, especially when endangered wildlife species are at stake. I can’t understand how that ministry would actually approve such a business plan that would wreak havoc on Armenia’s ecosystem.

Although that at least 1,000 people are expected to be put to work by the ACP, which I doubt will be long term, I can’t justify the further disintegration Armenia’s fragile ecosystem for the sake of business and employment.

Armenia Tree Project five years ago estimated that the total forested area coverage of Armenia was only around 6 percent. At the beginning of the 20th century it was something like 20 percent. By the time Armenia became part of the Soviet Union that figure dropped to 11 percent.

Armenia cannot afford to turn into a desert. The northern parts of the Teghut and Lori regions are blanketed by rich forests which are essential to the survival of Armenia’s ecosystem. The country’s forests have been suffering from illegal cutting to stuff the pockets of money grubbing oligarchs and greedy men in government for years. Can you imagine what Armenia would be like without forests one day? We can’t let that happen.

Jason pointed out some very interesting information that is contained in the report.

The study points out that [...]]]> My friend Jason at Cicer et cetera published an entry a few days ago about a UNDP study that was conducted to evaluate where Armenia was heading on its current course of not adapting to the realities of climate change/global warming.

Jason pointed out some very interesting information that is contained in the report.

The study points out that climate change will have far-reaching effects on social and economic life, and the ability for people to adapt will depend on whether or not funding will be available to support adaptive policy measures and how quickly these policies can be implemented. “Armenia’s future economic development will depend on the decisions that the current generation makes about investments in adaptation [to climate change],” warns the report.

***

On an optimistic note, the experts from the Stockholm Environment Institutepoint out that many of the best available climate adaptation policy measures can be important for Armenia’s economic development. These include improving water and power generation infrastructure, integrating climate adaptation in plans for economic development and energy production, planning for more efficient use of resources in the context of growth and higher rates of consumption, and considering the needs and vulnerabilities of rural and low income households.

“Unless quick action is taken on large-scale adaptation measures, it is unlikely that Armenian families, their livelihoods, or their economy will be unscathed by climate change. Armenia’s poor and especially its rural poor populations will be particularly vulnerable,” warn the authors. “Social impacts will include an increased incidence of illness from heat waves as temperatures rise, a shortage of water and an increase to electricity tariffs as competing needs collide, food shortages or increased food prices as agricultural productivity falters, and an increased incidence of dangerous and damaging landslides, mudflows, and floods as dry soil and deforestation coincide with extreme storms.”

I’m hoping Armenia’s Ministry of Nature Protection, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Transport and Communication and even the Ministry of Emergency Situations closely examines this study. Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian seems to be a very capable, smart guy, so hopefully he will make sure the government does whatever necessary to curb the potentially devastating effects that global warming could have on Armenia. It may mean that some of their personal business interests will suffer, but that should be irrelevant when it comes to protecting Armenia’s ecological future. Let’s hope they all do the right thing.