MAIN FOREST MANAGER OF ARMENIA: ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT ALLOWS FELLING OF THE FOREST IN TEGHUT WITHOUT CONSIDERATION OF ARMLES’S INTERESTS
arminfo
2007-11-06 17:53:00
ArmInfo. Development of the copper-molybdenum deposit in Teghut, Lori
region, Armenia started without the conclusion of Armles (Armforest)
CJSC on possible damage to Lalvar’s forestry. The forest in Teghut is
under Armles’s control and the right to develop the deposit in Teghut
for a term of 25 years was granted to Armenian Copper Programme,
main forest manager of Armles CJSC Ruben Petrosyan told ArmInfo
correspondent.
According to him, ecological expertise was conducted by RA Ministry of
Nature Protection without RA Agriculture Ministry’s request, under the
control of which is Armles. "We were neither asked about the extent
of the damage to the forest in Teghut, nor for permission to cut down
the forest for economic purposes", R. Petrosyan emphasized. At the
same time, according to his assessment, 50 000c/m of the forest will
be cut down for the development of the deposit on 357ha lot of Teghut.
For his port, Head of National Hygiene and Anti-Epidemiological
Surveillance Inspectorate, RA Ministry of Healthcare Artavazd Vanyan
said that the company "Armenian Copper Programme" accepted the proposal
of Healthcare Ministry to assess the consequences of discharging toxic
elements into underground waters and into the nearest rivulets, which
are sources for drinking water for the local residents. Commenting
on the defect of the field-development program at the request of
ArmInfo correspondent, he said that before the project developers
based on examinations done in 1952-1973years. They didn’t take into
consideration the majority of parameters, including, sanitary zones
around the mine, the flotation plant and the tailing dump haven’t
been specified. A. Vanyan promised to go into details of Healthcare
Ministry’s proposal later.
New Head of Ecological Expertise, Ministry of Healthcare Andranik
Gevorkyan gave an analogous promise. However, he said that there
was no new conclusion of examination and ACP company was granted
the right to develop the deposit especially on the basis of the
previous ecological conclusion, where the proposals of the Ministry
of Healthcare and Armles’s conclusion were absent.
He couldn’t answer the question if ACP has any new ecological
conclusion.
At the same time, Head of the Greens’ Union Hakop Sanasaryan asserts
that in case of development of the copper-molybdenum deposit in
Teghut all the lands adjacent to it will turn into a "dead zone"
and ACP company has no ecological conclusion with the proposals of
all the interested departments.
Moreover, in March 2007, on the instruction of Armenian president the
Ministry of Nature Protection had to reconsider the ecological and
legal justifiability of open development of the deposit in Teghut. More
than 20 ecological organizations formed a coalition SOS-Teghut and
keep confirming violation of a number of local laws and international
conventions, as well as defect of the field- development project. Up
to now the project doesn’t include any conclusion on possible damage
to archeological monuments, dating to ancient era. At the same time,
in the government they only speak about economic gain of the project,
and Director of ACP Gagik Arzumanyan said in his talk with journalists
that the ore concentrate will not be fused at Alaverdi’s melting plant,
as it was supposed to be, but will exceptionally be exported. The
company made this decision taking into consideration unprofitability
and the possible closure of Alaverdi’s copper- molybdenum plant in
connection with the fact that the term of fulfillment of environmental
obligations by ACP company expires in 2009. According to Minister
of Nature Protection Aram Harutyunyan the National Assembly didn’t
extend this term and the company by no means will be able to meat
the deadline of this term. To note, ACP’s attempt to get funds from
international financial organizations for developing the deposit in
Teghut failed as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
examined the matter and refused to provide funds because of ecological
problems. Today the field-development project is on the table of
the Russian VTB bank’s Board of Directors. The matter concerns to a
long-term credit worth a total of$98mln.