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Hrachik Papinyan

The forest gathers its skirts

Despite the alarms that ecological NGOs have been sounding for ten years, trees are still being felled on a massive scale in the north ofArmenia, in the forests of the Lori and Tavush marzes. The heavy rains at the end of May and the beginning of June disrupted the work. By noon, a few dozen men would be gathered in the center of the village of Marts in the Lori marz waiting for the sun to come out so they could go to the forest and earn couple of thousand Drams (585 Drams is about $1). The drivers of the big trucks fromYerevanwould kill the time by playing cards.

Arable land is scarce in Marts. The village is on a hillside and has been incorrectly cultivated, resulting in soil erosion and infertile land. Last year because of continuous rains the potato harvest was poor, and the villagers were unable to collect seeds; thus a portion of the land could not be planted this year. That is why the residents of Marts, faced with the threat of famine, don’t much like to think about ecology or what they are leaving for future generations. When we asked about cutting down the forests, Artash Gevorgyan replied, “If we don’t exist, will there be another generation? If we vanish where will that generation come from? It’s thanks to the forest that people can bake their bread. If we starve to death, where will the next generation come from? We have to preserve the forest, but we have to live, too. We understand that we should preserve it but we don’t know yet-- how should we preserve it and make use of it at the same time.” The organized felling of trees in the Motkor region-the home of Tumanyan and Matevosyan -- has begun only in recent years. Having consumed almost all of the resources of the Gugark forests, having stripped the hills and mountains surrounding Vanadzor, the “wood mafia” has almost completely moved in here now.

According to official data, the forestry service is expected to cut from 3,000 to 5,000 cubic meters of wood every year. On paper, the forestry service can’t accomplish this task. But in reality, ten times this volume of wood is cut every year. According to the Ministry of Ecology, not more than 71,000-75,000 thousand cubic meters of wood has been cut since 1991.

When the minister of ecology visited thevillageofOdzun, Karine Simonyan, a reporter from Alaverdi’s Ankiun +3 TV Station, characterized the situation as “horrifying”. The minister asked her for the facts. The facts indeed tell the story. Let’s make simple calculations. About 50 thousand families live in the Lori marz. At best, 20 % of them use gas or electricity to heat their apartments. The remaining 80 % use firewood. Our polling showed that in the towns of the Lori marz, each family uses 4 cubic meters of firewood for heating, in the villages this figures exceeds 10 cubic meters. It turns out that the local population alone uses 160 thousand cubic meters of firewood a year. But what about the schools, enterprises, businesses, other marzes, and the city ofYerevan? Calculate and multiply these figures by 10 years.

According to 1993 data, the entire resources of the forests ofArmeniawere 41.74 million cubic meters, and the annual growth was 354 thousand cubic meters. The Noyan Tapan Agency reported in 2001 that according to some expert assessments, the volume of felling in the republic amounted to 1,250,000 cubic meters a year.

Various government agencies have attempted to prohibit or to limit the felling of trees in recent years. But neither the creation of the Forest Police nor the work of countrywide and regional Ecological Inspections has been effective. In one interview, the marzpet of Lori, Henrik Kochinyan, said on the subject: “An inspector who goes on watch at night has to be replaced the next morning, or another inspector has to be sent to watch him. The “wood business” inArmeniais extremely shady. The sole consolation for the minister of ecology, Vardan Aivazyan, was that last winter was very snowy, which prevented the mass felling of trees. There is some truth to this, but at the end of January 2003, though the snow was 30-40 centimeters deep, we witnessed three groups of lumberjacks in the forests of Jiliza, and in one place they had loaded a truck with Georgian plates.

With the warmer weather, industrial felling especially has taken on new life. According to the same expert assessments published by the Noyan Tapan Agency, such felling constitutes 15 % of the yearly total. The most valuable sorts of trees are sawed up and exported fromArmenia- toFrancefor oaken casks, toItalyfor wine-barrels, toGermanyfor the interiors of Mercedes cars, toSpainand theUnited Arab Emiratesfor furniture and hardwood floors. The annual turnover from the timber business inArmeniais $8 million; another $10 million is estimated from the firewood business. Most of this money stays in the shadow economy, since almost all of the branches of the Hayantar conglomerate are in financial difficulty, millions of Drams in arrears for wages and taxes. In order to pay off their debts, the forestry service must freely sell the forests - the main source of their economic activity. In the end it’s not clear what forestry is for - to preserve the forests or to generate profit by selling wood and pay taxes?

There is no guarantee that a business organization that survives by selling wood won’t seek to increase profits just like any other business. How can one organization combine the preservation of forests with the right to sell them? Isn’t this the main cause of the tragic condition of Armenian forests?

Incidentally, the minister of ecology believes that in order to better organize the preservation of forests, the inspecting entities must be liquidated the number of forest wardens increased. At the same time, the felling already done must be coped with, and work to restore the old forests and plant new ones should be begun.

In 2002 Hayantar planted about 2 million saplings, 1.2 million of these in Gugark, since the forest there was the most devastated. In the newly planted forests, the capacity to take root was low. In recent years it has not exceeded 5%.

Andranik Ghulijanyan, director of the Ministry of Ecology’s Scientific andExperimentalCenterfor Forests, explains this by the attitude of forestry toward care and preservation. The experience of the last ten years shows thatArmeniahas not developed an efficient method to preserve and control its forests. NGOs believe that the problem will be solved only if the forests are handed over to the communities. According to experts, that will signal the end of the forests. During the 1950s and 60s the “kolkhoz forests” were completely felled and only empty territories were handed over to the Hayantar conglomerate. For now, a compromise solution has been found and community forests are being created. The first was in thevillageofOdzun, where the Armenian Forests NGO planted a forest on 200 hectares belonging both to the forestry service and the community, with the financial support of the Tufenkian foundation. It will be tended for three years and monitored for another ten. Planting of such forests is envisaged in other places in the Kotayk and Lori marzes as well. Time will tell whether these mountain hills will ever be covered with trees.

Meanwhile, according to forestry specialists, the Armenian forests have reached a 0.45 density level of restoration capacity. A level of 0.4 means the death of a forest. According to experts, the only salvation forArmenia’s forests is the prohibition of the woodworking industry or its full reorientation toward exported raw materials. And the priority is to insure the sustainable growth of living standards for the residents of areas close to the to forests, to make gas and electricity available there. Otherwise, as long as the demand exists, the residents of Marts will take up their saws and go into the forest.


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