Yerevan mayor absent as protesters rally against mass tree cutting

By Christopher Crowson

The initiative Yerevan for People organised a demonstration outside the City Hall on Tuesday to protest against the authorities’ latest tree cutting campaign in the Armenian capital.

Last week, the City Hall’s official contractor, Kanachapatum, cut down around 50 mature trees on central Yerevan’s Tumanyan Street as part of its program to remove and replace all of the city’s maple, elm and ash trees.

“We knew that the cutting down of these trees would eventually take place since the City Hall and Kanachapatum have a plan to cut down 60% of Yerevan’s trees,” a representative of Yerevan for People and main organizer of the event, Viktor Tsatryan, told CivilNet.

“I came to the protest because I have an office on Tumanyan St., and the crime took place in front of my eyes,” said concerned Yerevan native, Vache Asatryan.

With green spaces shrinking in the Armenian capital, the removal of trees not only does a disservice to Yerevan’s appearance but also poses several threats to the city’s population, including aggravating the unbearable heat in the summer, increasing levels of air pollution and causing the heightened risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, according to cofounder of the environmental initiative Kanach Yerevan, Kira Balayan.

Nearly one year ago, people gathered in front of the City Hall to express their dissatisfaction with the authorities’ approach to the management of Yerevan’s green spaces.

Last year, Mayor Tigran Avinyan, did come out of the City Hall building to address the protestors, promising that the cutting of trees in Yerevan would be suspended. He also told the hundreds of protestors that the City Hall would conduct an evaluation of the situation and make information available to the city’s inhabitants.

“No evaluation was conducted and no information was made available, and last autumn and now this spring they have started cutting down trees again,” said Tsatryan.

This year, neither Avinyan, nor any of the City Hall representatives made an appearance in front of the protestors.

Tsatryan and Balayan stated that they wanted to see an immediate end to the City Hall’s so-called tree replacement program and an end to Kanachapatum’s total control over the decision making over green spaces in the city.

When asked whether he was hopeful that changes would be made, repatriate Edgar Shahnazaryan told CivilNet that he “hopes that changes will be made but yet again it all depends on us. And although we may only see results after the third or fourth protest, we won’t give up and we’ll fight right until the end.”