News.am
Very often the free residues allocated by the government are being given to citizens for money or are handed out as electoral bribery. Concerning these issues the correspondent of Armenian News-NEWS.am talked with the head of ArmForest Martun Matevosyan.
Mr. Matevosyan, in what condition are Armenia’s forests today? Is the number of illegal deforestation decreasing?
According to statistics, deforestation has decreased in 2011 but due to the growth of gas prices illegal deforestation has increased recently. I think the government’s decision to allocate free wood residues to the citizens will help decrease deforestation rates.
There has been information that foresters sell timber to people. Is that true?
That’s a crime, but we don’t know anything about it. ArmForest does not take money for timber and the foresters are not allowed to take it either.
The Minister of Agriculture mentioned that the most deforestation is taking place in Lori region. Why does that happen? Maybe forestry does not work as it should?
From the 1990s, deforestation has had high rates in Lori region as it has many forests. But since 2000, large scaled reforestation works have been done. Of course, the fault of the forestry is weak protection.
P.S. According to certain information Armenian News-NEWS.am has got, not knowing their rights, Lori inhabitants paid for timber. Armenian Minister of Agriculture Sergo Karapetyan had announced during his visit to Lori region that some people even handed out timber as electoral bribery. He has promised to find and punish those people.
April 03, 2012 at 16:13