Public Monitoring of Forests in Armenia is a public service initiated and implemented within the frames of the ENPI East Countries FLEG II Program (European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument East Countries Forest Law Enforcement and Governance II Program) with financial support from the European Commission.
The Objective of this project is to support governance within the forestry sector and contribute towards reducing illegal deforestation in Armenia through independent monitoring of deforestation. Within the frames of the program, activities are underway to build the capacity of public institutions and establish independent monitoring units whose main goal is to carry out an independent monitoring of forests, identify illegal activities (logging, construction, dumpsites and other violations) in forested regions in Armenia and report findings to the public. This task is secured by another goal to engage local community members and independent experts to support independent monitoring of Armenian forests.
Forest monitoring targets both the forestlands under the administrative management of “Hayantar” SNCO operating under the RA Ministry of Agriculture as well as forestlands within the network of Protected Areas managed by the RA Ministry of Nature Protection. Field surveys are undertaken with or without the presence of state representatives. This program uses techniques for processing satellite images to detect and map timber harvesting and forests degraded by fire and repeated logging. The results of those surveys are stored in a databank coupled to a GIS (Geographic Information System). Monitoring is performed using GPS navigation systems, GIS technology, photographic and video documentation, as well as personal interviews and other methods useful in detecting illegal activities in the forest.
To support the Public Monitoring of Forests in different forested regions of Armenia (Lori, Tavush, Syunik, Kotayk) local support groups were trained on following subjects:
The current program allow Armenian citizens share their observations of illegal activities in the forested areas of Armenia. To submit your observation, visit a forestland, collect data (precise coordinates using GPS or proper field notes linking to specific location e.g. distance to nearest village, etc.), take photographs of location from different angles and submit your record.
