CUTTING INTO TROUBLE: ILLEGAL LOGGING DECREASES, BUT FORESTS STILL IN DANGER
- Nazeli Vardanyan, chairwoman of the Armenian Forests NGO says the illegal logging of forests in Armenia has decreased twice as compared to previous years. While the amount of logged wood counted to annually 800,000 – 1,000,000 cubic meters before 2003, the volume now is 400,000 – 500,000 cubic meters. It does not mean, though, that the forests are out of danger; simply that they’ve been scavenged.
“Surely, the volume of loggings has decreased, but it does not mean the situation has improved: the amount of the cut trees in the last 10-15 years has been so much that there is no natural reproduction any more, especially as there is overgrazing in the areas,” says Nazeli Vardanyan.
Ruben Petrosyan, senior forester of the Hyeantar [Armenian Forest] State Non-Commercial Organization, boasts the dropped numbers of illegal logging, despite the irretrievable losses of the past years, saying that “there is no country in the world to have such index of logging decrease” and adding the numbers brought by experts are far from reality.
“No one says there are no illegal loggings, but the numbers should not be exaggerated when our figures show in total there have been 4,000 – 5,000 trees illegally logged this year,” argues Petrosyan.
According to Hyeantar the Armenian forests were last registered in 1993, when the mass illegal loggings were still ahead.
1993 data show there were 334,100 hectares of lands covered with forests making 11.2 percent of the republic’s total territory.
As the environmentalists say the number speaks of scarcity of forests in Armenia. The data of the Armenian Forests NGO show the forest funds in the republic make 554,000 hectares, of which only 273,000 hectares are covered with woods.
“According to the international standards industrial logging of forests is prohibited in such cases. Early in 1993 the supplies of forests per one hectare were 125 cubic meters in average, which was only half of the healthy forest index,” the organization’s research reveals.
Nazeli Vardanyan believes in this case everything should be done to at least partially restore the lost and only later think of logging for sanitary purposes.
Petrosyan says, though, the decrease of sanitary and industrial logging causes accelerated aging of forests.
“One shouldn’t go from one extremity to another. In the 60s we decreased the loggings, which brought the aging of the forests. We should think of sustainable management and not decreasing the loggings,” mentions Petrosyan. He also admits that the authority over the forest-rich Tsakhkadzor was taken from Hyeantar and given to the local administration in 2002; as a result the forest areas are now covered with private mansions and summer houses.
He says 12,000 cubic meters of forests have fallen in forests this year, but because of limited leverages of management the agency is unable to clean and restore them.
“Large-scale logging of forests has resulted in erosion of soil, floods and landslides, drying of water sources, climate change and vanishing biodiversity. As a consequence – social, economic and demographic problems arise,” mentions Vardanyan.
Today 47 percent of forests in Armenia are classified as middle aged, 26.3 percent are mature and over-mature forests and only 10.6 percent are young.
Specialists say the low percent of young forests is an evidence of insufficiency in natural restoration and some sorts of trees are on the edge of extermination because of logging. As a result both the thickness and the types of trees in the forests have changed.
The natural seed restoration is insufficient especially in the oak forests. As a consequence the types of trees in the forest change, though undesired. This is particularly obvious in the forests of Syunik. As the former head forester of Syunik province, former director of Shikahogh reservation Vladik Martirosyan says the biodiversity of the forests has drastically deteriorated.
At present the average integrity of Armenian forests is lower the 0.5 points: forests lose their capacity to reproduce themselves in such cases. Moreover, Armenia provides only 0.1 hectares of forests per capita, while the index is 27 time higher in other CIS countries making 2.7 hectares per one person.
Environmentalists believe the disastrous situation should not be blamed only on the cold and dark years of the 90s, when even residents from the capital were widely cutting trees to get fuel and heating, but also the wood business that was formed in the atmosphere of total all-permissiveness; the latter, as a profitable business, became the monopoly of officials.
Vardanyan says Armenia, having limited supplies of forest, has always been an importing country in the wood market. However, it has become mostly an exporter in the recent years.
The Armenian Forests NGO points out that the acting tax legislation creates favorable conditions for the export of the goods: it sets zero tariffs for exporting and 20 percent for importing.
“To decrease the volume of wood and wood product exports from Armenia we need to include provisions into tax, customs and other legal acts hindering the wood exports and facilitating its imports,” Vardanyan says. “That is we need to fix a 20 percent VAT and 10 percent of customs duty for exports and zero percent for importing.”
Vardanyan believes illegal logging will decrease also when village communities are gasified, so that the villagers are not forced to bring wood from forest for heating in winter time.
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