Green Power: Nature Reserve Saved as Government Rethinks Route
of Key Strategic Road
By Suren Deheryan

ArmeniaNow.com
June 17, 2005

Environmental organizations that had protested for more than a month against construction of an interstate highway through the Shikahogh nature reserve celebrated a victory today.

The Minister of Transport and Communications Andranik Manukyan, who had been invited to a discussion of the issue at the American University of Armenia, announced that the highway would now be routed around the reserve to preserve its unique character.

Environmentalists had been angered by the fact that a 17-kilometer section of the new 90-kilometer road between Kapan and Meghri would run through Shikahogh, which is the most unspoilt of Armenia’s three nature reserves. The road is intended to be an alternative strategic link between Armenia and Iran.

Protestors estimated that more than 14,000 mature trees would have been destroyed, and the reserve’s unique fauna put at risk, if the project had gone ahead as originally planned. (see Paving Paradise for details.)

However, according to Manukyan and Minister of Nature Protection Vardan Ayvazyan, during the Thursday discussion at President Robert Kocharyan’s office, the old plan was reconsidered and a new route was chosen.

“The new variant will bypass the Shikahogh preserve and no tree will be felled,” Manukyan announced. “The President gave instructions to submit a feasibility study of that road section within a week, and today (Friday) a corresponding commission was set up on the Prime Minister’s order.”

The minister said preliminary data showed that bypassing the nature reserve would lengthen the highway by seven kilometers and cause the route to run 150 meters higher than before. The government promised to send a plan of the route to NGO representatives within a week.

The original route caused representatives of NGOs involved in other fields as well as residents of villages near Shikahogh to join environmentalists in the protests. Nora Hakobyan, chairwoman of the Republican Women’s Council of Armenia, said that Armenia would have lost a very important resource if environmental groups had not launched a campaign to save Shikahogh.

During the discussion at AUA, she asked: “If there had not been active discussion by ecological organizations, wouldn’t Shikahogh have disappeared? Who bears responsibility for failing to make an analysis before taking a decision about such a state program?”

Manukyan answered: “Without diminishing the NGOs, I can say that their role n the change of this project was zero. It was the Government’s decision to change it and not the result of NGO pressure; simply the possibilities of further maintenance and operation of the road and its strategic importance had been studied in detail.”

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