EcoLur
On 10 March the Chairman of “For Sustainable Human Development” Karine Danielyan made a speech at the press conference where a number of environmental issues have been raised, particularly in regard to biodiversity reduction and deforestation, as well as climate changes. Below is given the digest.
SITUATION WITH WASTEMANAGEMENT AND HALTING FOREST LOSS IN ARMENIA WORSE THAN IN THE WORLD IN AVERAGE: EXPERT
ArmInfo
Armenia cannot understand that today's ecology is tomorrow's economy, said Karine Danielyan, Chairperson of the Association For Sustainable Development, in a press conference at De Facto Club on Wednesday.
Drawing parallels between Armenia and other countries, K. Danielyan said that ecologists are most of all concerned about waste management and forest loss where the situation is worse than in the world in average. "One may get an impression that the government signs international conventions but acts in its favor. As a result, desertion scales may grow. The ecological situation in Yerevan is critical. To correct the situation we have agreed with the Yerevan Municipality to set up an Ecology Council," K. Danielyan said. As regards positive changes, she highlighted that the government reckons with the public opinion when settling many problems. "We can see that on the examples of the construction of a gold recovery plant in Sotk and alienation of the area of Jrvezh forestry," she said.
Nevertheless, she said that the government is not always ready to meet the demands by public organizations. For instance, she said, the decision of the Committee on Fulfillment the Aarhus Convention to discuss the problem of Dalma gardens with NGOs was not implemented. A similar decision was made also regarding development of the Tekhut copper and molybdenum deposit, but it is still unknown if the Government will listen to the Committee on Fulfillment of the Aarhus Convention. "Our efforts bring no results, since Armenia has not understood that today's ecology is tomorrow's economy. We must fight for this ideology to be laid in the basis of activity of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. At present they operate on quite different ideology of unprofitable economy and neo-economy," she said. Karine Danielyan highlighted that green economy is developed in the world at present. "It is very important for us to have exact criteria, indicators and indexes of green economy," she said. Danielyan recalled that she raised the given issues at the Global Environment Forum in Bali on Feb 20-26 and at the 11th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council. The problems of biodiversity and forest loss and climate changes were discussed at the forums.
March 11, 2010