Forest Restoration and Its Significance: Conference within Framework of International Day of Forests

Forest Restoration and Its Significance: Conference within Framework of International Day of Forests
A conference on "Forest ecosystem services and their impact on business" was held on March 21 as part of the International Day of Forests. It was initiated by "My Forest Armenia" e
Environmental NGO. The conference was attended by representatives of NGOs carrying out reforestation works in Armenia, representatives of the business community of Armenia.
 
Andre Gumushjian, Founding Director of "My Forest Armenia" NGO, noted that transportation, heating systems, construction, electricity production, and agriculture have an impact on the planet today. According to him, it is necessary to harmonize all this in order to cause less damage to the ecosystem of the planet.
 
Currently, according to official data, the forest cover in Armenia makes up 11.2%, but in fact it is estimated at 8%-10%. 
 
According to Andre Gumushjian, in 2019-2023, 650 hectares of forest were restored in Armenia with the efforts of "My Forest Armenia" NGO. Addressing the audience, he noted that today anyone can take part in reforestation works. "Who will continue our work? Now businesses have a role to play. Each of us can make a difference. Think about this. Creating forests is the best thing your company can do in the next 100 years," Andre Gumushjian outlined.
 
Karen Manvelyan, Director of WWF Armenia, noted. "Our main goal is to preserve biodiversity in Armenia, including forests, which is done by creating specially protected areas."
 
According to Karen Manvelyan, being part of the Caucasus ecoregion, WWF considers Armenia one of the 200 hotspots in the world, which has a rich biodiversity. "At the same time, we have quite a few threats: poaching, loss of habitats as a result of deforestation or the implementation of large infrastructure projects in the forests. Mining and the construction of small hydropower plants are also a big problem," he emphasized
 
Markos Lopez Ersilian, Head of Carbon Removal Program of "Life Terra" organization, presented the positive experience of the programs implemented by their organization. "We are a civil movement whose trick is to plant the trees in the right place. We are planting five main types of trees to develop biodiversity,” he noted.
 
Markos Lopez Ersilian mentioned that monitoring is being carried out in different countries of Europe and the world to understand how one tree can have an impact on the planet earth. According to him, the goal of the initiative is to plant 500 million new trees in Europe. "Stating from our establishment in 2020 to 2024, we have already planted over 6,460,000 trees, organized 1436 planting events," he said.
 
In the second part of the event, during the panel discussion on "The Importance of Nature Restoration for Businesses", IDBank Corporate Business Director Tigran Mkhitaryan, Vega Company Business Development Director Artur Chobanyan shared their experience of forest restoration and cooperation with "My Forest Armenia" NGO together with Maxim Kochetkov, Sustainable Development Consultant of "DataArt" Company and Tigran Parseghyan, Marketing Director of "EasyPay" Company.

March 26, 2024 at 12:10