EcoLur
GIZ program on biodiversity presented the outcomes of its studies to the government. Under these outcomes, forest-covered territories in Armenia make up about 11.1%, which almost coincides with the official number of “ArmForest” SNCO, 11.2%, which hasn’t changed for recent years.
Still in fall 2011 GIZ representative Aiser Kazaryan assured that latest technologies used in this program enabled to detect new forest territories, which so far haven’t been included in the official counts. As a result, the forest sector in Armenia “is replenished” by 22,908 ha.
We saw such forests in Lori Region, on the spot of forests cut down in the dark 90’s. Yes, nobody touches these forests, but when you have a closer look, you understand why nobody cuts them down: these are so-called secondary forests – thin and supple twigs grown on the stumps. Each stump has from 7 to 10 twigs, but they are absolutely not useful for the use neither as wood nor as industrial timber.
If the situation doesn’t change, after 10 years we will have jungle of twigs instead of forests and the same figure for forest-covered territories – 11.1%.
January 31, 2012 at 13:28