EcoLur
Monika Yeritsyan
“Complex Program for Recovery of Trout Reserves and Fish Breeding in Lake Sevan” has recently caused tense discussions, which the environmentalists call “destructive” and “anti-national”. It’s already clear that the project is backed by a group of tycoons, which having exhausted the underground water reserves of Ararat Valley, have decided to proceed to Lake Sevan, which is the strategic object of the Republic of Armenia.
The authors promise to transfer Lake Sevan Find 200 AMD from each sold kilo of fish. They assert that 23 billion AMD will be transferred to the fund by 2023.
Under the environmentalists, these very 23 billions close the eyes of the competent officials and don’t enable their seeing real threats – waterlogging lake, loss of freshwater.
The scientists and specialists point out at certain risks, for example, the epidemic breaking out in the reservoirs, high risks of fish prevalence of diseases and threats for human health. The list doesn’t end here. There is another important circumstance. This project is submitted as a state and environmental project to be funded from the state budget, i.e. it will be implemented at the expense of tax payers. Nature Protection Minister Aram Harutyunyan praises the project at any time and will seek to assure that the project is s serious cooperation between the state and the business.
The public is sure that this project is genuinely a business project masked under the environmental one. People are sure that the population will have no access to the lake, where their ancestors lived. A part of the lake is occupied with oligarchs and top officials, while the other part will be occupied with fish farms owned by the same tycoons. People will have to emigrate.
February 10, 2014 at 11:37