EcoLur
The artificial lakes in Armash, Ararat Region, are drying out because of lack of water, which results in the extinction of water bird species many of them being red-listed in Armenia. EcoLur Press Club hosted Silva Adamyan, Chairman of “Center for Bird Lovers” NGO and Karen Aghababyan, chief scientist of the AUA Acopian Center for the Environment, who spoke about the lack of water in Armash and the problem of preserving bird species.
“The problem started when Gili Lake was dried in the Soviet period and all the water bird species living in Gili Lake moved to Armash artificial lakes,” Silva Adamyan noted and added that many species in Armash created colonies. Specialists from the different parts of the world arrive at the area of Armash lakes to study the birds and carry out birdwatching. Under the environmentalist, this is the only territory, where there are such an amount of water birds.”
“Several years ago we med with the lake owners and tried to understand what is the tendency expecting to the lakes. They told us they already experience problems in regard with the water resources and they observe tendencies of reducing the number of lakes and to make them land areas,” Silva Adamyan said.
She noted that under the data for 2012, Armash has 18 big lakes and 5 small lakes, nevertheless, the situation has rather changed since 2012.
“10 days ago we went and noticed that the number of lakes reduced. The situation is rather more serious than we expected,” Silva Adamyan said.
“We have applied to many donor organizations to buy at least one lake to make it a specially protected area and to manage the situation there and to preserve the bird species,” Silva Adamyan said.
Karen Aghababyan mentioned that first of all they should understand the essence of the problem, and if the problem is with the water resources, they should understand the cause of the problem.
Under him, the problem is not the presence or the absence of the solutions, but how the application of this or that method will affect on the economy, on the one hand, and the biodiversity, on the other hand. He noted that this question required complex approach both by the government and the private and public sectors.
October 10, 2014 at 19:03