Armenia

THE LANDSCAPE OF Armenia is mountainous and varied, with rivers, waterfalls, forests, hot springs, natural caves, cliffs, and lakes such as Lake Sevan, one of the largest high altitude lakes in the world surrounded by non-active volcanoes. It is said that Mount Ararat, once geographically a part of Armenia, is where the biblical Noah's Ark landed after the great flood. The peaks of Mount Ararat can be seen from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. This landscape is threatened by global warming and by deforestation—an estimated 4,000 hectares of forests are cut for fuel and other purposes every year. At this rate, Armenia may be a barren desert by 2020. Armenia has the proper climate, topography, and geography to develop renewable energy from water, solar, and geothermal sources, which would benefit the country immensely.

Armenia is one of the world's oldest civilizations. Throughout the centuries, Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Turks and Russians have invaded Armenia, but Armenia has maintained a distinctive culture and language. A land-locked country surrounded by Iran, Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, Armenia's borders have changed because of frequent religious wars. Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity as a national religion, and has fought to preserve its religious and cultural heritage among the encircling Muslim nations.

From the 16th century through World War I, large parts of Armenia were under the control of the Ottoman Turks, who in April of 1915, during World War I, ordered the extermination of Armenian leaders, both intellectual and religious. Historians such as Dr. Richard Hovannisian state that approximately 1.5 million Armenians were murdered or died of starvation during the following three years. This is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey continues to deny that this genocide took place.

Armenia received its independence in 1991, after having been under Soviet rule since 1922. Economic hardship and environmental destruction came with Armenia's newfound freedom. Because of the high costs of fuel and a struggling economy, many looked to the forests as a means to provide heat, using approximately 70 percent of cut timber for that purpose. Besides illegal logging, the latest threat to the forests is the possible establishment of an open strip mine that would potentially clear-cut over 1,500 acres of forest in northern Armenia. Many nongovernmental organizations, such as the Armenia Tree Project and Armenian Forests, are involved in educating communities about the need to protect their forests. An estimated 60 percent of the total 8 million Armenians worldwide live outside of the country, but still manage to keep a vested interest in the country's environmental issues.