ENVIRONMENTALISTS OBSERVE A MINUTE OF SILENCE FOR DISTORTED GENERAL PLAN OF YEREVAN

arminfo
Tuesday, April 10, 19:18

An environmental conference organized by Trchkan civil initiative
started in Yerevan on April 10. Green activists, as well as
experts Knarik Hovhannisyan, Karine Danielyan (For Sustainable
Human Development NGO), Hakob Sanasaryan (Green Union of Armenia),
Karen Manvelyan (WWF-Armenia), Armen Saghatelyan (Center for
Ecological-Noosphere Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of
the Republic of Armenia) and others participate in the conference.

Karine Danielyan said that the landslide processes in Yerevan have
recently increased because of active construction. The experts are
also concerned over the seismic stability of the new buildings. She
said that the Northern Avenue vividly shows that the city should not
be improved that way under the current natural and climatic conditions.

“The governmental resolution says that the buildings in the Northern
Avenue are not to be higher than the building of the Theater of Opera
and Ballet. However, in fact, the things are quite the opposite. As
a result, the soil in the Northern Avenue has started subsiding”,
she said.

For his part, Hakob Sanasaryan pointed out that the ore mining
industry, which is actively developing, is a real danger for the
republic. He said that due to the new Code on Mineral Resources the
ore mining companies will pay nothing for the tails and tailing dumps
and will shift this burden to the state.

Sanasaryan added that not a single company estimates the environmental
damage caused by development of the deposits. “The only exception is
the Teghout deposit. We may disagree with the amount of the damage,
but at least the company has estimated the damage”, he said.

Activist Apres Zohrabyan said that the Armenian public has started
taking an active part in raising certain environmental problems. The
latest victory was the saving of Trchkan Waterfall from construction
of an HPP. “Civil initiatives have been set up for the support of
Teghout, Hrazdan, Kajaran, Jermuk. The society demands a clean and
green Armenia, and the Government must reckon with it”, he said.

The participants observed a minute of silence for the distorted
General Plan of Yerevan, deforestation of Teghout and disappearance
of the ishkhan (trout) from Lake Sevan.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress