EcoLur
The annual benefit of one ha of forest is 969 USD. The cost of one tree in rainforests is 500 USD as wood, but the environmental income of a tree during its life circle as water-preservation function, oxygen-producing function and that the tree is the habitat of insects and birds was assessed for 200,000 USD. On April 13 Hovik Sayadyan, Head of Foreign Affairs Department of Armenian Agrarian University, Dr. Geographical Sciences, made this statement at the press conference of at “EcoLur” press club. The press conference was held in the frames of three-day training course “Armenian Environmental Hot Spots” organized by EcoLur.
“The role of forest in gross domestic product can be assessed at 0.1-0.2%, it’s low magnitude, but its other roles – environmental, climate regulating, water, have ensured the local population with continuous population. Its potential is higher and more significant than it will be used for chopping,” Hovik Sayadyan said. Under him, wide-scale tree felling has endangered the existence of forests since from the 1930’s, while circulating data don’t show the real picture. “11.2% concept circulating in the science is not visible anywhere in documents or books… In 1986-88 the digitization of wide-scale maps showed the forest cover makes up 9.5% of the Armenian territory. The studies we made during my visit to the USA together with my colleagues from Colorado University showed this figure made up about 10% for the 1990’s, i.e. 300,000 ha forest territory,” Hovik Sayadyan said.
The reason for data corrections and imprecision Hovik Sayadyan sees not in the forest territory, but in quality changes. “As a matter of fact, everything cut down from 1993 to 2003-2004, afterwards the irregular growth is seen as forest-covered territory in the satellite image, but, as a matter of fact, these are low-quality bushes and it’s still question whether or not it will turn into a forest.”
April 15, 2013 at 18:41