Reports on Environment and Urban Development for Alaverdy

GEO ALAVERDI: ENVIRONMENT AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

4. Flora The ridges descending from the Gugarats highlands to the canyon (except for the southern slope) are covered mainly by lime, hornbeam and breadfruit tree forests. The trees grow in low soils, though at high descents. Bushes grow from the land-covered rocks, mainly rosehip, cornelian cherry, Christ’s-thorn and average density grass cover. The forests spread from the bottom of the gorge to the heights of 1700-1800m. The dominant tree species of these forests are oak, beech, hornbeams, breadfruit, lime; the bush forests are rich with cornelian cherry, elder grove, hackberry, couch grass. In the period of 1991-2000, because of energy and economic crisis, the forests of Alaverdi, as well as the forests of the whole Republic were used intensively. Because of lack of any coordination in this process the self-regulation and self- assimilatory capacities, as well as the ecological properties of the forests were disturbed in a territory of thousands of hectares. According to the data provided by several international observers, in the years of energy crisis about 700,000 – 1,000,000m 3 of trees were cut in the forests of Armenia every year, 70% of which illegally. Because of lack of any inventory efforts in the forests, the aforementioned data are not approved of fi cially. 62% of the forested areas of the RA are located in the South-East, in the Marzes of Lori and Tavush. The State reserve of forests in the Marz of Lori is 101835ha, 80867ha of which are forested areas. The forest reserve comprises about 26% of the Marz area. 1463 hectares of forested land belong to Alaverdi, 262,15 of which are bushes. The forests of the region have special soil protective, water protective and climate regulative signi fi cance for the area, as well as high socio-economic and scienti fi c value. These areas are rich with various plant species. The lower parts of the forests are rich with a Georgian type of oak, in mix with hornbeam and sibljak population. Because of the gas erosion, the trees of the forest are signi fi cantly damaged, with sooner periods of defoliation and low growth rates. If 10-15 years ago, the population was used to cutting the forests and separate trees around the residential areas, because of the energy and economic crisis, now only beech trees are being intensively cut (about 100-150 years old trees only). The lower and upper borders of the forest are being pressed, and the fl ora species vanish. Gradually, the traditionally characteristic plants become extinct. It is important to mention also that there are 23 vanishing species registered in the Red Book, present in these forests, the main reasons for the elimination of which are anthropogenic. 5. Protection of fauna The energy crisis and the aggravation of the socio-economic conditions

38

CHAPTER 3: STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Environmental Knowledge for Change