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Armenian Diaspora Promises to Help Local Activists in Saving Teghut Forest

The group fighting to save Teghut forest in Armenia’s north has launched an awareness campaign outside of the country, said group members Yeghia Nersisyan and Gor Hakobyan at a press conference in the capital today. Group members were in Moscow recently, where they met with members of the local Armenian community. According to Nersisyan, Moscow Armenians were extremely concerned about the issue and expressed willingness to help: they promised to organize protests outside VTB Bank (which is funding mining operations in Teghut) and write letters to Greenpeace.

Present at the Moscow meeting, continued Nersisyan, was a representative from Vallex Group (of which Teghout CJSC, the mining company, is a subsidiary) who tried to make a speech. According to the activist, though the environmentalists allowed him to speak, the youth at the meeting refused to speak to him.

“For the first time, the solution to an environmental problem goes outside the country’s borders. We plan to leave and meet with members of Armenian communities in Canada and the US. Recently, one of our activists, Arpine Galfayan, met with members of the Armenian community in Germany and raised the issue of the Qajaran mine,” she said.

Their movement, Nersisyan continued, has received offers of financial assistance from various organizations, but the environmentalists have refused such offers, because they believe the issue “doesn’t recognize political parties or programs and has a pan-Armenian urgency.”

“Teghut means Armenia. They tell us we’re fighting to save a couple of trees. This isn’t a fight over a few trees, but for Armenia. Kajaran [where residents are being displaced from mining operations] is a testament to the consequences of the mining industry,” she said.

Gor Hakobyan also addressed the oft-expressed idea of the need to politicize the movement. “The group defending Teghut is a civic initiative — we have no political motives. However, any civic initiative is associated with politics, as well as with social and legal platforms.”

Recall, publicist Ara Nedolyan, in an interview with filmmaker Davit Stepanyan published by Epress.am on Thursday, addressed this matter of politicizing environmental issues, saying that by choosing not to politicize these problems, environmentalists are treating the symptoms but not the disease itself, which can be treated only by changing the system.

Photo: Ecolur Informational NGO