Eco-tourism or mining – this is the decision facing many rural communities in Armenia.

Take the example of Svarants, located a kilometre or two from the Tatev Monastery in Armenia’s southern region of Syunik.

The government says it has big plans to turn the area into a tourism center that will be a model for the rest of the country.

The region, however, dating from Soviet times, has also been a prime site for mining operations and a source of much needed national revenues.

The dilemma is clear. Can the two sectors exist side by side?

Fortune Oil, a Chinese concern, has been granted an exploratory license for the Svarants iron mine.

The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources states that the company’s exploratory license ends in November, 2013 and that operations would probably be launched the following year.

What will happen to the government’s tourism plans for the area? Studies show that there are 1.5 billion tons of iron ore for exploitation – a huge expanse.

When the issue first received national coverage, Begor Papazyan, the then Director of the National Competitiveness Foundation, emphatically declared that mining and tourism couldn’t coexist on the same territory.

On a return visit to the area I saw no evidence of exploratory work in the village.

Local residents I spoke to didn’t believe that tourism would put the village on the road to development. Neither are they convinced that mining is their only salvation.

Tourists visiting the area never make it to Svarants. The Tatev aerial cable car can’t be seen from the village.

I caught up with Svarants Mayor Artour Margaryan on the Tatev-Svarants road.

Mayor Margaryan had no qualms concealing his support for iron mining and fondly recalled the “golden age” of mining during the Soviet era. Svarants was a flourishing community back then, he boasted, and even surpassed Tatev.

“In the 1960s and 1970s, when the mine was operating, Svarants had the only market in the entire region. The Russians working in the mines would come and buy. There was a hustle and bustle back then. The school had 370 pupils. Now, only 30 are enrolled. Today, only 45 houses out of 120 in the village are actually being lived in. The village is dying and I believe that mining is the only salvation.”

Mayor Margaryan doesn’t have the same upbeat attitude regarding tourism and believes that Svarants has nothing to gain from the Tatev cable car.

“If only the cable car reached Svarants it would be the best of both worlds; mining and tourism,” says the mayor.

Mayor Margaryan says that he’s such an avid supporter of mining because he sees how his friends in Kapan and Kajaran have benefitted.

Artour Ghazaryan, an expert in mining sector affairs, says that mining will lead Svarants on the road to disaster rather than development.

“With all this talk about the development tourism in the region, it’s hard to see how mining will develop alongside as well. I mean, they are mutually exclusive. And if the iron mine does start to operate, it will eventually result in a tailings dam, the most dangerous aspect of all. You’ll have a repeat of what exists in Kapan, Kajaran and other mine sites.”

Mr. Ghazaryan believes the claims made by the Ministry of Nature Protection that the implementation of modern technologies will minimize any possible risks to the environment are not supported by fact.

“We have a wealth of experience in the Kapan region related to mining. Syunik as a whole is polluted. A Russian firm is preparing to operate the Dastakert molybdenum mine in Sisian. The future doesn’t look bright. We all know how the environmental ministry conducts public hearings. It’s just window dressing. So why should we believe that mining operations will be conducted according to the letter of the law?”

Environmental Protection Minister Armen Movsisyan, during a recent TV program, responded to the concerns expressed by Ghazaryan.

Movsisyan stated that the issue of tourism and mining in the Goris district would be would be weighed as to the pros and cons of each sector.

“It thus appears that the government is taking a wait and see approach. If the government actually had a serious tourism program in mind, the question of mining wouldn’t even be raised today,” says Ghazaryan.