WAY TO DESERT?
Support A1+!According to the map issued by the center of the environment examination and preservation of the American University of Armenia, the forest area, which made 2848 square kilometers in 1991, will be reduced to 1168 square kilometers by the year 2010.
Head of the department for the foreign affairs of the Academy of Agriculture, lector of the silviculture faculty, candidate of geographic sciences Hovik Sayadyan does not agree with such an assessment. «Nether of the maps is scientifically correct. Any of the formal reports of 1991 says that that forestland occupies 334100 hectares in Armenia - in kilometers the figure makes 3341 and consequently does not correspond to the data presented.
Let any specialist glance the data provided by the UNWFP, he will see that in 1990-2000 the forestry has expanded. However it is an inverse tendency. As a matter of fact the area occupied by forests reduced but not as much as the AUA center states.
Today Trees of Armenia NGO has organized the fourth exhibition called Way to Desert at the silviculture faculty of the Academy of Agriculture. In the words of Nazeli Vardanyan, the NGO Director, this exhibition helps to develop public awareness. “We receives al lot of comments on the exhibitions, even a volunteer movement was initiated. There are people, who are eager to plant trees. Besides thanks to the participation of a representative of a foreign organization we obtained the possibility to carry out extra programs. The members of the RA National Assembly and government, who adopted a number of important resolutions, for instance the program against illegal felling, also attended our exhibitions», she said.
The works of Karen Asatryan, Jeffrey Tufenkyan and Richard Krause, who took pictures of the forest reserve of Shikaokha in Syunik, river Tavush in Shamsghadin, Shamlukh in Lori as well as the of timber, exported from Noyemberyan and Dilijan, were presented at the exhibition.
