Yerevan’s shrinking green spaces

By Paul Vartan Sookiasian

These days, many in Yerevan feel themselves living under a cloud. With the past years of war, displacement, and existential threats, that sentiment is appropriately figurative, but literal as well. Despite the city’s famously blue skies, clouds of dust hanging over it have become a common sight, with alerts that air pollution is at dangerous levels a common occurrence.

A primary reason for this is the city’s lack of trees. It hasn’t always been this way though. Yerevan even has a dedicated “green ring” section in its downtown and forested areas in the suburbs. However, with the energy crisis of the 1990s known as the “dark and cold times,” vast swathes of trees were cut down by residents for basic heating needs. Though thirty years have passed, the forests have never been replanted and Yerevan has been without its “lungs.”

Municipal statistics indicate that in 1990, one person in Yerevan had a share of 8.47 square meters of green space. Now however, in the suburbs one person shares at best 7.5 square meters of green space, while those downtown have only 3 square meters, and even that is in a polluted state. For reference, the World Health Organization’s minimum standard for green space per person is 9 square meters.

There are 850 hectares left for public use in the capital, or 3.6% of its total area, according to the city government’s calculations, while in the 1990s there were 1930. Green areas include vegetated areas, parks, gardens, lawns, and sidewalks. Looking at the statistics, while the cold years saw the public green space fall to 1460 hectares in 1995, the years to come were even worse.

Public green space was much further reduced by a construction boom which saw all manner of structures built within public green spaces, often illegally by representatives of the oligarchic system which had taken hold. This led to a total area of just 760 hectares by 2000, while the municipality’s rezoning of the forests of Nork in the mid-2000s for development was another major blow. Current tax incentives have led to another ongoing construction boom, with over 300 structures currently being built, often against regulations.

The loss of forests on the slopes around the city has been particularly detrimental to air quality. As associate professor at the Armenian National Agrarian University Hasmik Khurshudyan explained:

“Yerevan can have strong winds, and most of the dust which blows into the city during those gusts comes from the adjacent slopes, because without trees the soil breaks down and is blown into the center. A solution to this is restoring the urban forests, something we have undertaken and will continue to pursue.”

Also contributing to air pollution is the ever-increasing amounts of traffic in Yerevan, with the number of cars in Armenia increasing by an average of 35,000 each year. The issue of air quality has become a serious issue, and many candidates running in last fall’s city council elections were pushed to address it.

Armen Begoyan, director of Yerevan Municipality Greening and Environmental Protection Association, says the city government is currently working on the problem from different angles. In particular, an urban forest park is envisioned for part of the Gazprom facility near the northern entrance to Yerevan, while the auction of some property in the Dalma Gardens property has been halted. The city’s Hrazdan gorge is a natural target for developing green space, but the river running through it requires comprehensive cleaning.

An important initiative being undertaken is the mapping and documentation of the trees, bushes, and other plants throughout the city. The information is placed into a database to track the extent of green areas. Older trees which are no longer thriving are starting to be replaced, and there are plans to preserve what remains of the Nor Nork forest and do plantings all over the city.

The main opposition party on city council also supports preservation efforts, but criticizes the way the city is going about it. For example they disagree with the city’s city’s choice of trees to plant, asserting that they are not well enough suited to Yerevan’s climate conditions and thus will not be successful.

While there is hope for plans being set into motion to address Yerevan’s inadequate environmental conditions, there is still much more which needs to be done. One glaring example is with the massive construction works happening all over the city.

There is little to no regulation of the construction companies involved, and environmental standards remain incomplete and unmet. Both the companies and municipality are not clear about what is required of them, while city lawmakers appear uninterested or unwilling to establish relevant guidance and standards. As long as such issues remain unaddressed, the efforts being implemented now towards a greener Yerevan will be compromised.