The public environmental protection organizations of Armenia intend to lodge a claim to the Armenian authorities on June 30, 2009, Chairman of the “EcoDar” NGO Hrayr Savzyan informed News.am.

The reason for the claim to the RA Administrative Court is that different governmental agencies signed the documents on the development of the Teghut mine, Lori region, Armenia in defiance of the Armenian Constitution, laws and a number of international agreements. Savzyan pointed out that the issue of suing the authorities has been delayed the due to the case volume (66 pages). However, “on Friday we’ve already submitted the papers to the Government and hoped that the claim will be lodged with the court tomorrow”.

In addition, Savzyan also reported that the environmental protection organizations collected about 6,000 signatures in Yerevan within ten days. According to him, the signed messages will be sent to RA President Serzh Sargsyan, RA Parliament Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan and RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan. “90% of the people we approached readily put their signatures and were happy that their opinions on the Teghut mine would be taken into account,” Savzyan said.

Regarding the Armenian Copper Programme (ACP) representatives’ statement, that twice as many trees will be planted throughout Armenia against the 350 hectares of deforested areas, Savzyan said it is an absurdity. “Forest is a whole system with its fauna and is not to be restored through tree planting,” he said. “This cannot be called compensation.”

The copper reserves of the Teghut copper and molybdenum mine are estimated at around 450mln tons, with copper reserves estimated at 1.6mln tons (copper content in the ore being 0.355%). The molybdenum reserves are estimated 99,000 tons (the molybdenum content in the ore being 0.21%). The mine can be exploited for 30-45 years, with the planned annual output of 25-30 thousand tons of copper and 8,000 tons of molybdenum. The ACP got a license for developing the Teghut mine in 2001. Each ear 12 hectares of land are to be deforested, that comes to 357 hectares of the whole operation period. The mine development project raised serious discontent among NGOs. A number of Armenian parliamentarians spoke against the project as well – they believe, that the project with cause serious environmental damage. Nevertheless, the Armenian Government approved the project.

The ACP is a part of Vallex Group. FM Establishment registered in Lichtenstein is principal holder of the company (80.74%), with the 19.26% of shares held by the Russian citizen Valery Mejlumyan.