This was the topic of a discussion on 11 May in the Round Hall of the Writers’ Union.  Participants wrote a letter to President Serzh Sargsyan and Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.  Excerpts from the text of that letter are presented below. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the necessity to encourage sheep rearing in Armenia.  The Minister of Agriculture, in one of his press conferences, spoke of a program which plans to increase the number of heads of small livestock up to 1.5 million (Hayastani Hanrapetutyun daily, 27.01.2010).  According to the Minister, foreign importers have already brought 12,000 sheep into the country.  We, the participants of this discussion at the Writers’ Union of Armenia, are categorically against the policies in this area because they could have catastrophic consequences. We are convinced that, besides being a harmful practice, sheep rearing is an obstacle to the rearing of large livestock as well as the development of apiculture and is a leading cause of soil erosion, desertification and the decline in wild flora and fauna. The numbers of small livestock in all countries are being reduced.  In those countries where meat and dairy produce is well developed, the numbers of small livestock are insignificant (Switzerland – 200,000, Sweden – 180,000, Belgium – 100,000, the Netherlands – 10,000), while we are ignoring the experience of leading countries in Europe and the Americas and are following the backward Asian countries, where there are large numbers of small livestock (Iran - 48.1 million, Pakistan – 53 million, Turkey – 53.5 million). While it is true that sheep rearing is a leading practice in countries like Australia (where sheep are reared for wool, not meat), in those cases there are mandatory provisions like reservations and rotating pastures, while in Armenia, sheep farms exist everywhere, including the Khosrov forest. The huge expanses of desert in the Middle East, Mongolia, Central Asia, Ethiopia and other countries as well as the eroded soil on the mountains of Greece and Spain are all a consequence of mass sheep rearing in those areas. The argument that “sheep rearing tackles social issues” is baseless, given that the production of milk in 2007 exceeded that in 1990 by 210,000 liters, which was made possible by a reduction in sheep rearing and a diversion of resources to raising large livestock. Considering the development of sheep rearing and an increase in the number of sheep in Armenia unacceptable and concerned with the latest developments as well as taking into consideration the United Nations World Charter for Nature, which compels countries to preserve nature and their natural wealth, we attach the report of our discussion at the Writers’ Union of Armenia and appeal to you to review the policies in this area.