While representatives of different parts of the Armenian government and the Vallex Group leadership claim that the project of exploiting the Teghut mine will have a positive impact on the Armenian economy, stimulating the creation of jobs in Teghut, activists of the Teghut Protection Civic Initiative and environmentalists warn that this project will not eliminate poverty, moreover it will cause immigration, which is already rather high.
They are convinced that the project is too short-term to eliminate poverty, because human being will be deprived of possibility to have a healthy life and have healthy children in that area in several years. “They will have neither a possibility to live there, nor air, nor a possibility to bear a healthy child. At best, people will simply earn some money, which will be sufficient to leave that territory, because it will not be possible to live and raise children on that territory anymore,” Lena Nazaryan, an activist of the Teghut Protection Civic Initiative, said in the framework of the forum organized in the office of the Peace Dialogue NGO of Vanadzor. Environmentalists and activists draw attention to the problem of poisonous chemicals gathered in the tailings as a result of exploiting the mine, raising the issue that in an 8-point risky area, developing mining industry is not in the interest of the population, it violates the law, moreover, we will have another dead zone in the Republic of Armenia instead of virgin forests, clean air and healthy children. “Every piece of land in Armenia can be exploited, used for its natural resources. The conditions for natural resources in Teghut are much more favorable, in order to develop tourism, agriculture and types of green economy. However, due to this project the local healthcare situation will be the same as in Kajaran and those places where people just die. We don’t want to have another dead zone in Lori,” lawyer Artur Grigoryan says.
According to him, the territory of Teghut is a huge potential that will be just taken off the state economic balance sheet. “It will become a dead zone, one will not be able to do anything there anymore,” the lawyer states, explaining that the exploiter will leave in 10, 30 years with all profits, inheriting deforested territory and huge amount of poisonous chemicals in the tailings to us. “All this dirt with its poisonous chemicals will remain there forever,” he states.
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Grigoryan is convinced that the government of the Republic of Armenia doesn’t develop alternative possibilities deliberately, not leaving any choice to the residents other than to take that extreme step at the expense of their health. “There is a purpose here. Those people who adopt the law today deliberately adopt such laws, write the law so that to develop the mining industry more quickly, to develop at the expense of agriculture, tourism and other branches, because they are involved in the mining industry, which allows to become very rich in a short period of time. They deliberately don’t develop any branch of the economy in that region, in order that people are compelled to take any job in the mining industry, which poses threats,” the activist says.
Anush BULGHADARYAN
