What type of trees are cut in lumbering?
Armenia’s forests and urban green spaces barely survived the energy crisis of the early 1990s. Fifteen years later the nation’s forests are again under threat, this time from illegal logging, corruption and the lucrative trade in lumber. Non Governmental Organizations engaged in environmental problems say that while focus was centered on damage from the energy crisis (1992-93), greater damage has been done to the forests of Armenia since a market for lumber emerged afterwards. “The forest cuttings started spontaneously in the 90s,” says Hakob Sanasaranyan chairman of Armenia’s Union of Greens. “Then they became systemized and then powerful statesmen took the monopoly of cutting forests in their hands. From provinces that had abundant trees, firewood began being imported to the Ararat valley for sale. That is how the inhuman exploitation of forest began.” Today, trees in the republic’s three most heavily forested areas – the Tavush and Lori regions in the northeast, and south-eastern Sy
