Public hearing on environmental safety held in OSCE-supported Aarhus Centre in Vanadzor

YEREVAN, 6 December 2006 - The environmental impact of a copper mining project was in the focus of a public hearing hosted by the OSCE-supported Aarhus Centre in the city of Vanadzor in Armenia's Lori province.

"While the exploitation of natural resources is instrumental for the socio-economic development of the region, the protection of the environment is equally important to minimize the damage done to nature," said Henrik Kochinian, Governor of Lori province.

"Hearings such as this one organized by the OSCE-established Aarhus Centre are very valuable since they give an opportunity to hear the views of experts and the local community."

The event was attended by representatives of the regional administration, the village communities of Teghut and Snogh, local non-governmental organizations, Yerevan's Aarhus Centre, the Ministries of Nature Protection and Agriculture, and the Armenian Copper Project.

"To avoid environmental problems in the region, we have to make sure that any environmental activity undertaken in this field is well-defined and subject to continuous public scrutiny," Gohar Oganezova, an expert at the Institute of Botany, said at the hearing, which took place yesterday.

Armenian legislation requires the country's mining industry to include environmental aspects in their budgets and to provide for plans to compensate for damage done to nature. However, the concrete implementation of these provisions remains to be defined by Armenia's government, and it is hoped that the recommendations made at the hearing in Vanadzor will feed into the government's decision-making in this area.

These recommendations include the reforestation of an area of 500 hectares which due to the mining process had most of its trees felled. NGO representatives also presented their views on the future public monitoring of environmental activities.

The OSCE Office considers the hearing as a step forward in the implementation of the second pillar of the Aarhus Convention on public participation in environmental decision-making. The new network of Public Environmental Information (Aarhus) Centres in Armenia, which was established with the help of the OSCE Office in Tavush, Lori and Syunik provinces, help promote the implementation of the Aarhus Convention. They also serve as a venue for government, civil society and local community actors to raise and discuss environmental issues.