YEREVAN (Armenpress)–Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan met Wednesday with members of the Public Ecological Alliance to discuss Armenia’s current ecological situation and the prospects of sustainable development in country.
According to the Government’s press office, Sargsyan spoke to the environmental activists about a range of issues from the preservation of Armenia’s biological diversity, and the future of Lake Sevan, to the ecological hazards in Armenia’s rural and urban environmen’s.
According to the members of the Public Ecological Alliance, which is an umbrella organization of Environmental NGO’s, the solutions to Armenia’s varying problems should be viewed within the framework of sustainable development concepts and should fall in line with the country’s sustainable development commitmen’s.
The Armenian Sustainable National Council, set up by the Government in 2002, should step up its work, they all stressed.
The NGO representatives thanked the prime minister for his consistent attention to Armenia’s ecological problems and his willingness to meet with them to discuss their solutions.
They said the situation in many parts of the country is alarming because of infective cooperation between the government and NGOs in the past.
They agreed that these problems could be resolved through systemic changes, by strengthening rule of law and putting the management of Armenia’s natural environment on scientifically based grounds.
Sargsyan echoed the concern, and stressed the active work of the National Sustainable Development Council, explaining that it is important for institutionalizing their cooperation and making it more effective.
He promised to conduct regular meetings of the Council and to jointly define its agenda.