MINISTER BACKS CONTROVERSIAL MINING PROJECT
By Shakeh Avoyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 5 2007
Minister for Trade and Economic Development Nerses Yeritsian voiced
support on Friday for a multimillion-dollar mining project that,
if implemented, will lead to the destruction of a rich forest in
northern Armenia and is strongly opposed by environmentalists.
The Armenian Copper Program (ACP), the country’s second largest
mining company, plans to invest $270 million in turning the Teghut
forest rich in copper and molybdenum ores into a big mine in the next
five years. The Liechtenstein-registered company is already making
preparations for the start of open-pit operations in the 357-hectare
area covered by some 128,000 trees.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Environment gave its mandatory
approval of the project. ACP is confident that it will soon get final
government clearance to start work on the Teghut deposit.
"I personally approve of that project," Yeritsian told university
students in Yerevan. "That the project must be implemented is out of
question for me," he said. "You just can’t keep revenue underground.
You must extract revenue and think about how to develop that area."
Yeritsian echoed ACP executives’ arguments that the planned development
of the deposit will result in 1,400 new jobs. The private company
has also pledged to build new schools and make other investments in
the local infrastructure.
Environment protection groups insist that all of this would be
trumped by the heavy ecological cost of the project. They say it
would accelerate Armenia’s deforestation which began in the early
1990s and is increasingly threatening the national ecosystem.
Armenia’s mining and metallurgy sectors, dominated by foreign
investors, have expanded rapidly in recent years on the back of
soaring international prices for copper and molybdenum. Non-ferrous
metals are currently the country’s number one export.