YEREVAN. – Addressing environmental issues, particularly forest conservation and restoration, is one of the priorities of the activities of our government. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday stated this in his opening remarks at the “Forest Summit: Global Action and Armenia” event being held in capital city Yerevan.

“Sadly, our country has been facing the challenges of a decline in the viability of forest areas for a long time already,” Pashinyan said, in particular.

The PM informed, however, that the Armenian government has launched an initiative of planting 10 million trees.

“The Government of the Republic of Armenia recently made an unprecedented decision, and we allocated 424 million drams to start the process of forest restoration in the Republic of Armenia by the end of the year, ” he added. “In this regard, we plan to plant around 500,000 saplings on a 140-hectare area by the end of the year. This project has created about one thousand temporary jobs in Armenia.

“These projects are unprecedented in their scale, and they show the clear commitment and political will of the government of the Republic of Armenia to restore forests and expand forest-cover areas in Armenia.”

Also, the PM recalled that they have recently toughened the penalties for illegal logging in the country.