EcoLur
Edgar Ghazaryan has been holding Vayots Dzor Regional Head’s office since 22 June 2012. What kind of socio-environmental problems have been revealed within these three months and what are perspectives set. All about this in the video report from EcoLur.
Edgar Ghazaryan: When I held this post, At first was not just surprised, but amazed with how many small HPPs have already been constructed in this small territory and how many HPPs are still planned to be constructed. I was worried with these figures, as during my visits to our communities I noticed that fish spawn in rivers, and these rivers experience serious problems with water. While the reason for these are small HPPs. I gave an assignment to our colleagues from the environmental inspection to be more consecutive and to reveal to what extent these HPPs comply with normative standards. It’s not excluded that for getting profit a private company can violate both set standards and capacities, if there is no control. We are now focused on this problem. So far we haven’t given our agreement to any construction and will be very alert in this regard. We bear responsibility before our people and are concerned with the existing environmental problems. If a resource can serve and give good, there are no special reasons to reject the constructers. Nevertheless, the given resource shouldn’t be exploited at the expense of nature.
When EcoLur asked how the problem with local mass media can be solved (the region doesn’t have its own TV and radio broadcasting), E. Ghazaryan replied:
- We touched upon the most painful point. As a matter of fact, we don’t have either radio or TV, even regularly publishing newspaper. A claim had been submitted for local TV, but then it was withdrawn. We are now seeking to find partners for operating TV channels to provide time for news coverage, and naturally we will use Internet.
When asked how to combine tourism development and mining industry development in such a small territory, the governor replied:
-The Government has approved the development program of Vayots Dzor program for 2011-2015. Among planned directions in this program mining industry is missing. If there are any developed mines, this issue will be discussed in the context of socio-economic development so as to understand what kind of influence this sphere may have, what kind of impact it may have: positive or negative.
Our main direction is agriculture, and another direction is tourism, which is naturally centred in Jermuk. We have perspectives of obtaining an international image for Jermuk. Besides, we have marvelous caves, gorges, natural and cultural monuments. We have a serious potential, which we should use.
September 17, 2012 at 15:34