CUT TREES BUT SELECTIVELY

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
20 Sept 04

It happened so that I went to the village post office to make a call
at midnight. On my way I saw several lorries `Ural’ passing through
the central street of the village. All of them were carrying timber in
which I got certain noticing the white circles of logs shining white
under the light of the street lamps. Why carry them at night? The
first person with whom I shared my anxiety was the mayor of the
village. He did not know who does illegal tree felling. But he stated
that several people turned to him for permit to cut the nut trees
belonging to the community. The community council decided to forbid
felling of nut trees belonging to the village community. The community
of the village Togh used the right for ownership and forbade the
felling of nut trees. It is not easy to find out the situation in the
other communities of the country, however, certain work has been done
already. From July 10 to November 1 of 2003 the temporary commission
of the parliament (chairman Karen Adamian, members Maxim Mirzoyan,
Ararat Petrossian, Souren Sarghissian) checked tree felling in the
territory of NKR for legality, and especially felling of the rare and
expensive kinds of trees included in the Red Book. Of special interest
are the conclusion of the commission and the suggestions (during the
checking illegal cases of tree cutting were also revealed). `The
felling of the mentioned kinds of trees was done according to the
order maintained by the NKR government. However, the legislative
regulations for the sphere need further elaboration and accomplishment.’

The conclusion of the commission dwells on the following problems: `a)
there is no Red Book of NKR regulating the sphere, b) in the package
of legislative acts there are no rules for the felling of timber, c)
absence of inventory, mapping and monitoring of forest, enabling to
maintain the kinds and age of trees, situation, the qualitative and
quantitative characteristics of the forest, which does not favour the
effective implementation of legislative acts, d) the distribution of
the special state agencies charged for protection, reproduction and
use of forests and their rights and duties are not clearly regulated.’
The commission suggests the NKR government: a) confirming the Red Book
of NKR and working out the regulations of the NKR Red Book in the
section of forest flora, b) maintain the `Rules of Tree Felling’, c)
maintain state bodies specially charged with protection and
reproduction of forests distributing clearly their rights and
duties’.

The commission also suggests creating an agency for state protection
and maintaining the order of its activities, regulating the activity
of the forest cadastre and state registration of the forest resources,
publish the results regularly, starting with 2004 maintaining the
quota on tree felling, charge the responsible bodies with checking the
permit for correspondence with the number of the cut trees and the
sums paid to the community for tree felling, working out the main
directions of the strategy of forestry policy for 2004-2010. The head
of the department of nature protection G. Grigorian to whom we turned
to for information on the situation of forests, did not hide that the
problem is very serious. Moreover, he is sure that illegal tree
cutting will continue as the control over tree felling is exercised by
the same body which carries out tree felling. Besides, in NKR the
price for timber is several times lower than in Armenia (which is the
case in other spheres of trade as well), and as soon as the prices are
not equal there will be no end to the `hunters’ for cheap
timber. According to G. Grigorian, the problem will be solved if the
function of control is transferred to the NKR State Department of
Environment and Protection of Natural Resources which is, actually,
supposed to carry out this function. The NKR Minister of Agriculture
B. Bakhshiyan does not fully share this opinion. According to him, the
price for timber in NKR should be lower than in Armenia because the
condition of roads is bad and transporting ti mber from one place to
another costs more than in Armenia. And if the prices become equal, we
will never attract any businessman in this sphere. According to
Mr. Bakhshiyan, the wood working companies simply save the forests of
Karabakh where in the last 10 years no felling was carried out, and
therefore there is a large number of trees which need to be felled. He
agreed to G. Grigorian that the function of controlling tree felling
should be carried out by the department of environment and nature
protection, although he thinks that the situation will not change much
as there are no serious violations in the sphere. In reference to
legal felling, the amount of timber is far less than the demand (to
compare, in 2003 20 thousand cubic meters of oak, 16 thousand cubic
meters of beech and 5 thousand cubic meters of other kinds of timber
was demanded. The government permitted to fell 7 thousand cubic meters
of oak, 6700 thousand cubic meters of beech and 1,7 thousand cubic
meters of other kinds of timber). Besides, the amount permitted is
reducing year by year (in 2004 the government permitted to fell 3
thousand cubic meters of oak, 4 thousand cubic meters of beech and 800
cubic meters of other kinds of timber. During six months 1400 cubic
meters of oak, 1000 cubic meters of beech and 41 cubic meters of other
kinds of timber was felled). And nevertheless there is reason for
worry. There is danger in felling the same kinds of trees every
year. The qualitative change of the forest worries the minister of
agriculture as well. What is more, the number of expensive kinds of
trees is decreasing because of diseases rather than felling because,
according to the minister, there are no specialists in the republic.

The head of the department for environment and nature protection
G. Grigorian also stated that in the republic there are no specialists
of geology, mapping, forestry. Is the top leadership of the country
aware of the problem? Maybe we should send young people to Russia,
Germany (where these specialties are highly developed) to study?
Presently it is impossible to implement an important work such as
forest mapping because of the lack of specialists, which was last time
done in 1980. And at last the question whether in the past 15 years
any trees were planted in NKR nurseries or forests. It turns out that
there were attempts which failed. Instead of the three nurseries
working in NKR in soviet times now there will be only one in
Stepanakert. According to the minister of agriculture, next year it is
planned to provide 25 million drams for tree planting instead of 3 or
5 millions of previous years. According to G. Grigorian, when there
were three nurseries in Karabakh (in Martakert, Hadrout and
Stepanakert) only in the state forest resources 250 hectares of forest
was planted. Besides, another 150 hectares of forest was planted in
the collective farms. Such kinds of trees as peer, cypress, maple,
Greek oak, etc, on the verge of extinction need to be protected by the
law (there is the government decision at least on this matter). And if
expensive kinds of trees are to be cut, felling should be done in a
correct way, selectively. Otherwise, we deprive ourselves of the right
to be considered a civilized nation.

SUSANNA BALAYAN.
20-09-2004