MARIAM SUKHUDYAN: STILL SPEAKING FOR THE TREES

Transitions Online
April 15 2010
Czechia

An update for readers on Mariam Sukhudyan, the Armenian enviro who
was charged with slander last year for publicly alleging abuse of
students at a Yerevan school for disabled children at which Sukhudyan
volunteered. As Onnik Krikorian reported in December for TOL, Sukhudyan
was convinced the charges were retaliation for her campaigning against
massive tree-cutting in northeast Armenia’s Teghut forest to make way
for a planned copper mine. She was offered plea deals by prosecutors
but refused them all.

After meeting Sukhudyan earlier this month at Social Innovation
Camp Caucasus in Tbilisi – a two-day event (co-sponsored by TOL) at
which teams of techies, activists, bloggers, and others brainstormed
media-savvy solutions to social problems – I’m pleased to report that
she’s out of the legal woods: all charges arising from her school
whistle-blowing were dropped in March.

And, freed from requirements that she remain in Yerevan pending the
resolution of her case, she has taken her activism to a new level,
hatching an idea for an anti-deforestation web project that won first
prize at the SICamp (another disclosure: I was a judge on the panel).

She and a multinational team will get $3,000 to realize their plan
for Save the Trees, an online platform for Armenians to report on
illegal tree cutting in their communities. They hope to expand the
idea to neighboring countries.

Meanwhile the campaign to save Teghut suffered a setback 24 March
when, for the third time, an Armenian court threw out environmental
NGO EcoDar’s suit against the project, ruling the organization was not
a party of interest in the matter. EcoDar has said it will take the
case to European courts; mining is set to begin in Teghut next year.

EcoDar has produced a video documentary about Teghut, an
English-subtitled copy of which Sukhudyan offered me in Tbilisi. You
can watch it below.