Cbd third National Report Armenia (English version)

B. PRIORITY SETTING, TARGETS AND OBSTACLES

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Please provide an overview of the status and trends of various components of biological diversity in your country based on the information and data available.

The Armenia’s geographical location, complex geological structure, highland zoning, location on the borderline of different natural-climate provinces have contributed to the general of rich natural and landscape diversity. In Armenia there are seven different landscape types with specific cohabitations, representatives of flora and fauna. The Armenia’s biodiversity is extremely rich by valuable economic species. Approximately 2000 species of plants have nutritive, fodder, curative, painting, oily, honey-producing, resin characteristics. A range of animals have fur, meat and other characteristics. The biodiversity has got numerous species of crop wild relatives and animal genes, due to which Armenia from old times has been one of the centers of cattle breeding and agriculture. At present approximately all the ecosystems of Armenia are subject to human influence, as a result of which hundreds of plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction. The consequences of the human impact are more visible in case of forest, semi-desert ecosystems, as well as unique water ecosystem of the Lake Sevan. There are numerous issues in the forest ecosystems connected with the irregular use of the forests; degradation and extinction of forest diversity; massive infection by pests and diseases. The poor condition of the Lake Sevan’s ecosystem is first of all conditioned by the decrease of the water level system; reduction of the lake’s surface; misbalance of the biological elements and chains of the supply in the water; extinction of the biodiversity components. In Armenia there is a clear link between bioresources and socio-economic situation. The bioresources are pivotal factors supporting the economy of the country, especially in providing with agriculture and recreation, as well as food and industrial sectors. The economic changes of the last decade have had a considerable impact on biodiversity. Although as a result of reduction of industrial volumes there has been a decrease of air, soil and water pollution, the degradation of various ecosystems and extinctions of certain species continues first of all as a result of welfare decrease of the population. The leadership of the republic, very much concerned with the existing situation, has classified the prevention of degradation of ecosystems and biodiversity among the priority of the country. During 2002-2005 the relevant legislative basis has been created for the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of bioresources; a range of real steps have been taken with the purpose to improve and stabilize the institutions; financial resources provided by the state and aimed at the development of the sector have been increased by several times; international cooperation has been expanded. As a result of this there has been a tangible move in conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and plant-animal species. One of the key achievements has been the reduction of the water use from the of economic purposes and stable trends of lake’s water level increase, as a result of which one can see recovery of water ecosystem and biodiversity. The achievements and obstacles for the conservation of the biodiversity identified by the working group are presented in the table below:     Strengths Obstacles; needs - Existence of laws, sub-legislation acts; - Perception of the importance of ecological issues by the Government and public; - Armenia’s membership to international conventions and interstate agreements; - Stable policy framework; - Increase of state financing aimed at the biodiversity maintenance during 2002-2006; - Implementation of international projects aimed at the personnel training; re-training and development of science; - Expansion of cooperation with international entities; - Presence of sustainable system for specially protected nature zones and setting up new zones; - Support to the introduction of biodiversity monitoring in specially protected nature zones; - Number of entities performing scientific researches (scientific-research institutes; scientific centers; relevant departments in universities; scientific divisions); - Comparatively high degree of studied bio-diversity in the republic; - Presence of Red Book; - Presence of broad-scale information about biodiversity; - Presence of high quality specialists; - Presence of large number of NGOs dealing with environmental issues and their proactive activities. - Negligence of biodiversity conservation issues in various socio-economic development programs of different sectors; - Insufficient enforcement of provisions stipulated by law; - Need to develop and adopt normative-legal acts regulating the sectors; - Insufficient funding of the sector; - Lack of interconnection of processes going on in the country, insufficient inclusion of the convention issues in them; - Expansion of non-regulated use of bioresources as a result of population’s destitution and reinforcement of human impact on the eco-systems; - Lack of evaluation indicators for the state and tendencies of biodiversity; - Unclear separation of the functions of entities performing management, planning and supervision in this area; their frequent overlap or omissions; - Lack of databases on biodiversity; state registration; inventory and monitoring system; - Lack of the mechanisms for the involvement of the private sector during the decision making process on biodiversity maintenance; - Lack of the national program on conservation of the genetic resources, sustainable use and improvement of accessibility; - Poor and non-regulated financing of scientific topics in the area of biodiversity; - Insufficiency of high quality personnel in the line of certain professions (including forestry, taxonomy, resources sciences); - Limited use of traditional knowledge, experiences and methods; lack of information; - Insufficient level of use and exchange of advanced technologies.