The Environmental Protection Service was discussed with the representatives of the German Rehabilitation Loan Bank (KfW).
Under the leadership of Deputy Minister of Environment Aram Meymaryan, the draft law "On Environmental Protection Service of the Republic of Armenia" was once again discussed with colleagues in the ministry.
Frank Mörschl, senior portfolio manager of German Reconstruction Loans (KfW) projects, Lusine Aleksanyan, Secretary General of the Ministry's Forestry Committee, Lusine Avetisyan, Head of the Strategic Policy Department, Voskehat Grigoryan, Head of the Special Nature Protected Areas and Biodiversity Policy Department, Director of the World Wide Fund for Nature's Armenian branch Karen Manvelyan, Arman Vermishyan, director of the Armenian representative office of the Caucasus Nature Foundation participated in the discussion
The general secretary of the forestry committee presented the changes planned by the project to the colleagues.
Currently, the protection of forests and specially protected areas of nature is carried out by employees who carry out protection, who have low social protection, little technical equipment and powers (the right to carry service weapons), work with a five-day and eight-hour work schedule defined by the Labor Code (09:00- 18:00), have low technical equipment, as a result of which it is not possible to fully ensure the proper protection of the territories.
According to the results of the analysis, it becomes clear that the offenders, taking advantage of the above-mentioned legal regulations, carry out forest violations mainly on non-working days and hours.
Article 26 of the current Forestry Code stipulates that forest protection is carried out by the state forest service operating in the system of the authorized body of state administration. At the same time, part 5 of Article 26 of the Forestry Code stipulates that the order of activity of the State Forestry Service shall be established by law. Meanwhile, there is a need to completely review the legislative regulations and ensure a unified approach to the protection of forests and specially protected areas of nature.
Therefore, it is planned to create an Environmental Protection Service with the implementation of the protection of "Hayantar" SNCO and SNPA SNCOs.