EcoLur
Tanzaver Village is all surrounded with forest, and even in this hot summer it’s humid there. No shop, transport only once a week. The village used to have a shop, but it had to be closed, as the whole village ran into debt. The nearest residential area is Kapan, but the road is rather poor. The village has only 30 households and over 100 people. There is a school in the village, which has 9 pupils. “We have 110 residents…Several people work in Goris forestry enterprise, some people in the administration, we deal with cattle breeding and beekeeping… We have cleanest products, but there is to nobody to sell to… Surely living in here is heroism,” said Village Head Arsen Harutyunyan in the course of the meeting with ENPI EAST FLEG 2 working group.
It’s unclear what to do in such a place in the absence of infrastructures. It’s only fitting to deal with forest. Forest is used by Goris forestry enterprise. The villagers can’t buy forest and assure that they use only fallen deadwood. The director of Goris forestry enterprise assured that the fallen deadwood is as much as you need. “Our plan is 1400 cum per year, and we don’t conduct additional felling. There is too much wastewood, which people use. Sure we don’t count, but I can assure that forest is not used. The reason is simple – no people have been left in the villages. Only elderly and lonely people are left who use little wood. On average, the village uses much less wood than it used to. We cooperate with village heads and regional municipality to draw up lists of poor and elderly people, who need these 8 cum of wood. As a matter of fact, fallen deadwood is much more,” said Armen Ishkhanyan, Director of Goris forestry enterprise.
In reply to the question how forest plantation takes places, whether there are new forest planting, he said, “I can say that reforestation is impossible without forest nursery, it’s extremely unpleasant for forestry officers to fell down forest. We need forest nurseries. We used to bring most of the planted pine trees from Goris forest nursery – up to 1,000,000 trees for the whole region. But the forest nursery needs funds, which we don’t have. Everything is available – territory, water, but no funds.”
It’s unclear how Tanzavr has good situation with the forest, when at the same time forest is changed in other near-forest communities. People, who used to actively use forest as fuel, are now deprived of it. For example, Yeghegnut river in Lori Region. In 2010 ENPIEAST FLEG 1 working group visited the village, when each second man had some relation with the forest – either felled or transported forest. Several cars loaded with forest could be seen on rural roads at the same time. Now you can’t see either forest or cars. Yeghegnut doesn’t even have areas for planned felling. Where is the forest, which is recovered at significant rates, as our officials say?
“5 years ago we used to have forest, but no we don’t. We used to have both horn beech, and oak and pears. Now we don’t have anything. Something grows in the felled down areas, but it’s not forest, and we can’t even use it as fuel. It’s just shoot, which grows and blocks the roads, because nobody fells it down and deals with it. The width of the shoot is not over 7 cm,” Village Head Misha Hovhannisyan said.
The representatives of Gugark forestry enterprise, having taken part in the meeting, think that the biggest problem with the forest is the low status of “ArmForest” SNCO, which doesn’t enable solving problems in normal way.
“We don’t work in Yeghegnut Village. Our areas are mainly located in Vahagni. But there only areas in high places have been left. We have big problems with selection felling areas. The forest borders have gone up. Sure, forest may give many products, such as berries, wild fruit, but we need only timber,” they said. We heard the same in Gargar Village, “The forest borders have drastically gone up and it’s becoming more and more difficult to collect fallen deadwood.”
Questions are left who will allot funds for reforestation? Who will find alternatives for the villagers, for whom forest is the only source of energy? And finally, who will need forest, if all near-forest communities get empty?
Tandzaver Village
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September 08, 2015 at 16:19