Press Release
December 4, 2006

ATP Pledge Contributes to UNEP Billion Tree Campaign

YEREVAN, Armenia and WATERTOWN, Massachusetts--Armenia Tree Project (ATP) has joined the worldwide tree planting campaign launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Karapetyan Family with their thriving backyard micro-enterprise nursery in the village of Aygut; this is one of the hundreds of families that Armenia Tree Project (ATP) has employed in the Getik River Valley through its Backyard Nursery Program.

As part of the “Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign,” ATP pledged to plant at least 500,000 trees in 2007. This will be part of Armenia’s contribution to the UNEP goal to plant at least one billion trees worldwide during 2007.

ATP was founded in 1994 in to further Armenia’s economic and social development by assisting the Armenian people to use trees to improve their environment and standard of living. Guided by the need to promote self-sufficiency, aid those with the fewest resources, and conserve the indigenous ecosystem, ATP mobilizes resources to fund reforestation and the preservation of remaining ecosystems.

Through interrelated programs including urban and rural tree planting, environmental education, and advocacy, ATP stands at the forefront of addressing Armenia’s environmental challenges.

Over the past 12 years, ATP’s Community Tree Planting program has facilitated the planting and restoration of more than 800,000 trees at over 600 sites in Armenia. Fifty thousand trees are grown each year to supply this program at nurseries located in the refugee villages of Karin and Khachpar.

At these two nurseries, ATP conducts research on tree propagation techniques, produces 53 varieties of indigenous tree species, and provides environmental education programs for students, professionals, and visitors. In addition to improving the environmental landscape, the program creates jobs and a living wage for hundreds of people in a country where half the population lives below the poverty line.

Beginning in 2003, ATP began a micro-enterprise reforestation program in the rural refugee village of Aygut. The Backyard Nursery Program was designed to simultaneously regenerate the local forests and reduce poverty by providing jobs. The program has expanded from a pilot program of 17 families to over 300 families, who produced nearly 300,000 trees this year. And, ATP established the Mirak Family Reforestation Nursery in Margahovit village in 2005, which will have the capacity to produce over one million trees each year.

“Armenia Tree Project is honored to be a part of the UNEP Billion Tree Campaign,” stated Executive Director Jeff Masarjian. “As we begin organizing our 2007 programs, we are expecting to plant 60,000 fruit and decorative trees from our Karin and Khachpar nurseries, 230,000 tree seedlings from our backyard nursery program, and 210,000 pine and other reforestation seedlings from our nursery in Margahovit.”

“We were inspired by the UNEP Billion Tree Campaign announcement by Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai at the UN meeting on climate change in Nairobi last month, and we were the first organization to join the campaign with a pledge from the Republic of Armenia,” added Masarjian. “We are proud to join this international effort to plant trees to fight climate change, which is worsened by rampant deforestation around the world.”

To read more about the UNEP Billion Tree Campaign, visit: http://unep.org/billiontreecampaign/

About Armenia Tree Project

Armenia Tree Project (ATP), a grassroots-supported non-profit organization based in Watertown and Yerevan, conducts vitally important environmental projects in Armenia's impoverished and deforested zones and seeks support in advancing its reforestation mission.

Since 1994, ATP has made enormous strides in combating desertification in the biologically diverse but threatened Caucasus region. Nearly 1.5 million trees have been planted and restored, and hundreds of jobs have been created for Armenians in seasonal tree-regeneration programs. For more information, visit www.ArmeniaTree.org.

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