Minister of Nature Protection Erik Grigoryan met with over 50 non-governmental organizations and civil initiatives operating in the sphere of environmental protection. During the two-day meetings that lasted more than three hours, the attendees raised a number of sectorial issues and presented their proposals. In the first part of the meeting, the Minister of Nature Protection submitted the policy principles conducted in environmental protection sector, the foremost directions of reforms and planned activities. Answering the questions, Minister Grigoryan illustrated the procedures related to Amulsar gold quartzite mine, the scope of powers of the Ministry, the steps to prevent single-use plastic in Armenia, and ongoing measures targeted at streamlining the issue of wild animals kept in semi-captivity and captivity. There were also introduced the activities to reduce environmental risks and eliminate the environmental impacts of mine exploitation, the steps intended for increasing the efficiency of water resource management, the environmental monitoring system and the EIA process and the forest sector reforms to the representatives of non-governmental organizations and civil initiatives.  Officer of Armenian Environmental Front (AEF) civil initiative Levon Galstyan suggested to submit legal norms to the public review during the early phase, thus involving representatives of the civil society. The Minister of Nature Protection noted that all legal dossiers will pass public reviews according to the defined order and if necessary, the society will also be involved at the planning stages of their development. Erik Grigoryan informed about the issue related to the activity of "Armoil" CJSC raised by the residents of Nati district, Yeghvard, that the Ministry of Nature Protection returned the technical documents envisaged for the construction oil and bitumen production facilities submitted to "Environmental Impact Expertise Center" SNCO for the completion cause of the inconsistency with the law.   On the same day, in the course of the meeting with the members of "Intellectuals' Council" held at the Ministry of Nature Protection, they discussed issues apropros of extractive industry and the measures supervised in the framework of the functions of the Ministry of Nature Protection.