World Wildlife Fund (WWF) indicates the path of the proposed road through the Shikahogh Nature Reserve, Siunik, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia

The co-founder and president of the Armenian Forests NGO Jeffrey Tufenkian writes for Groong on the success of the environmental coalition that surprisingly managed to prevent the government from building a highway through the Shikahogh Nature Reserve and Mtnadzor Forest in the southern Siunik region of Armenia.

The government would have happily proceeded with this plan to destroy the forest and let others profit from its destruction. However, civil society did not sit idly by.

Being active there with projects to protect endangered Persian Leopards and other endangered animals, World Wildlife Fund was one of the first to respond. On April 25th they contacted other NGOs, and later international organizations and funders seeking support with an alert.

As Tufenkian points out, this victory marked an important precedent for the pro-environment and pro-democracy movement in Armenia and especially represented the one time that civil society worked together. More importantly, activists actually succeeded.

The campaign is still being analyzed, but certainly among the successful elements were the conviction of those involved to do what could be done to stop it, the selflessness of the way people worked, the fact that those opposing this route were proactively investigating and proposing alternatives, they were gathering information and that they involved a broad range of society and international entities.

Media coverage definitely played a key role, and the involvement of key Diasporans and others from different corners raising this issue with key officials must have had an impact. Government officials did not want to keep hearing about this issue, but they did over and over again.

At the beginning most people probably doubted the campaign would be successful, but the momentum kept building and the possibility for victory became more and more real. The result is very important and rare victory for the environment and for Armenia in general.

What this shows is that civil society can make a positive difference in Armenia if they approach the situation effectively. It shows that the government will respond if they are appropriately pushed. It further provides a great example of how environmental issues can be used to not only further environmental protection, but engage civil society in a way that could carryover to other issues.

Amen to that.

Jeffrey Tufenkian’s piece can be read online here. There’s also an article I wrote for Oneworld.net on the campaign here as well as a Macromedia Flash presentation of images and text on the Hetq Online site.