EcoLur
In 1995 the United Nations General Assembly declared June 17 the "World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought". The UN Convention to Combat Desertification has been acceded by 193 countries, including Armenia. ‘A number of projects are being implemented in Armenia aimed at mitigating the phenomena of desertification, which are funded by the state budget and donor organizations,' said Ashot Vardevanyan, the National Focal Point of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Under A. Vardanyan, 81% of the Armenian territory is being degraded, while 32% is being desertified.
'I would like to hear concrete figures and concrete facts from our officials. I have heard this figure of 81.9% of soil degradation in Armenia for ten years already, and this figure doesn't change. We have active mining processes and increase in ore mining by several times. Qajaran Combine only increased ore mining by 7-8 million tons making it 17 million tons. It means that more and more fertile agricultural land areas are exposed to the impact of wastes,' said Inga Zarafyan, 'EcoLur' informational NGO President, 'The fullness of our five reservoir is less than the half of their maximum volume. There are no signs of drought, we have snow, it rains almost every day. Where does this water go? We didn't receive any answers to these questions, so why should be construct another new reservoir without knowing whether or not we will benefit from it? Meanwhile we have huge natural reserve of freshwater in the form of Lake Sevan, 37 billion square meters, which are exposed to huge threats.'
June 17, 2014 at 22:19