STEWARDSHIP OF NATURE: WWF INAUGURATES ARMENIA OFFICE FOR SAKE OF CONSERVATION
- Nearly 400 plants and 99 species of vertebrates in Armenia are registered in the country’s Red Data List, indicating endangered species. “Flora and fauna are interdependent. When forests vanish animal species also vanish. The quantitative weight of animal species is also interdependent: when panthers vanish the number of wolves grows. And panthers really vanish. We have witnessed this year wolves flooding villages,” says Karen Manvelyan Director of the World Wildlife Fund Armenian branch.
On October 4, the international day of animal protection, the Fund’s Armenia branch (WWF Armenia) marked the official opening of its office.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was established in 1961 and is one of the largest environmental organizations in the world. It oversees biodiversity protection, sustainable use of natural resources and implements about 700 programs in more than 100 countries, involving around 5,000 personnel. The WWF office in Armenia was founded in Yerevan in 2001, and in November 2006 it was officially registered as the Armenian branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-Armenia) (www.wildlife.org). At present, it coordinates more than 20 environmental programs that also contribute to solutions to socio-economic problems. The presentation of a video-clip entitled “Let’s preserve Armenia healthy and beautiful for people and nature…”once again heralded the importance of preserving wildlife.
Among the 500 species of vertebrates of Armenian wildlife are the Armenian mouflon (sheep), Bezoar goat (ibex), Caucasian leopard, brown bear, panther and others. Hakob Sanasaryan, chairman of the Green’s Union of Armenia says the last monitoring of animal species has been held in the Soviet times.
According to the fund’s estimates there are about 1,000 goats and 250 mouflons in Armenia. The latter is an endemic type. Manvelyan says the species will still be endangered even if hunting is stopped.
“Those animal species mainly survive owing to regional agencies on specially protected areas. But the areas are so few that it’s hard to imagine a healthy population of those species,” says Manvelyan.
The analysis of the fund shows the major threats to the biodiversity in Armenia are mining industry, illegal logging of forests, poaching and illegal selling of wild animals, overgrazing, large scales of fishing, infrastructure development, contamination of rivers and wet areas. These threats result in the degradation of environment, increase in the specie population and deviations in environmental processes causing loss of biodiversity.
Manvelyan says poachers are mainly representatives of regional power structures and high-ranked officials, although villagers also go for hunting. (It has been reported in the press that the former Minister of Environmental Protection Vardan Aivazyan shot gulls and Member of Parliament tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan hunted chamois by helicopter).
Hakob Sanasaryan, chairman of the Union of Greens recalls how a tycoon killed one of the last red deer in 1996.
“Poaching has become a type of leisure today, a kind of a hobby wealthy people enjoy. They afford themselves even to build summer houses in reserves, something Vazgen Sargsyan’s brother did in the Khosrov reserve,” says Sanasaryan, who is now concerned with the forest adjacent to the village of Teghut in Lori province, where ACP Company plans to have mining industry by cutting 357.16 hectares of forest that will provide 57,700 cubic meters of wood.
He says in case the mine is exploited 55 species of mammals will vanish in the area.
Only 2 of the 3 reserves in Armenia fulfill their function of facilitating the animal specie conservation to some extent: the Erebuni reserve in 60 hectares of territory, environmentalists say, is useless. And the Khosrov reserve in the province of Ararat, not far from Yerevan and the Shikahogh reserve in the remote province of Syunik occupy only 1 percent of RA territory.
“All across the world reserves make at least 10 percents of a given country’s territory. Even in Georgia and Azerbaijan there are 17-18 reserves. While Armenia is very poor in this regard: one can say the situation is fatal and there is a need to create new reserves to save the animal species,” Manvelyan says.
A month ago a program to create new national parks in Armenia was approved to give solution to the problem. Soon to be launched, Arevik and Zangezur parks in Syunik province and Lake Arpi in Shirak province will join the two national parks Sevan and Dilijan with about 10 percent of reserve areas.
Manvelyan says there is need for a joint regional strategy for the conservation of animal species. Upon the initiative of the foundation a strategy for Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and the Caucasian parts of Turkey and Russia has been developed for the preservation of the Caucasian leopard. For already 5-6 years the fund runs a separate program for preservation of panther in Armenia.
“We have already initiated a program of providing Syunik and Vayots Dzor provinces’ environmental agencies with technical equipment that we will start as soon as it is approved,” Manvelyan says.
Besides, the fund has started to realize programs of alternative income – husbandry, horticulture and apiculture – in six communities.
“We try to settle the conflict between villagers and forests by supporting the villages; we also try to change the opinion that preserves hinder villagers’ life,” Manvelyan says.
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- 1813 The Russian-Persian Treaty is signed at Fort Gyulistan (Artsakh). It ended the war that had started in 1804. According to the agreement, Persia recognizes the provinces of Artsakh, Gyandja, Shaki, Shoragual, Talish, Derbent, Ghoobay, Pambak, Zangezoor, Shirvan, Baku, Loree and Shamshadin as belonging to the Russian Empire.
- 1882 Birth of literary critic Hovhanness Avagyan. He died in 1959.
- 1895 Rebellion breaks out at Zeitoon against Turkish administrative malpractices.
- 1961 The Armenian SSR decides to rename the Kotayk, Abovian and Adini regions to Ani region.
- 1962 Diasporan Armenians begin a new repatriation program to Armenia.
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