Версия 17:30, 20 января 2008

Шаблон:Unitedt

Greening Armenia Since

Armenia Tree Project (ATP) was founded in 1994 to further Armenia's socioeconomic development by mobilizing resources to fund greenery restoration and reforestation programs. These vitally important new trees provide food, fuel, wood, environmental benefits, and opportunities for economic growth.

ATP’s goal is to assist the Armenian people in using trees to improve their standard of living and protect the global environment. As an extension of these undertakings, ATP also aims to promote self-sufficiency, aid primarily those with the fewest resources first, and conserve Armenia’s indigenous ecosystem.

Since 1994, ATP has planted and restored over 531,000 trees at over 500 community sites from Gyumri to Goris. By 2006, ATP programs will have the capacity to produce and plant over 1 million trees per year, with the goal of planting 15 million trees throughout Armenia by 2015.

History

Armenia Tree Project (ATP) was founded in 1994 by philanthropist Carolyn Mugar. During the winter of 1992 while visiting Armenia, Ms. Mugar saw that families desperate to heat their homes were burning their own furniture, and thousands of trees were being cut for fuel. She decided to commit towards preventing further deforestation in Armenia.

In order to research and develop a plan to found an organization that would work towards realizing her goals, she turned to Regina Eddy, who was an experienced developer of non-governmental organization (NGO) programs. Ms. Eddy agreed to serve as ATP’s Executive Director, and in late 1993 they traveled to Armenia to hire a staff. ATP’s efforts in Armenia were officially launched with the start of the first tree-planting project at the Nork Senior Center in the spring of 1994.

During the course of an eight-year time span, thousands of trees were planted in Armenian communities throughout the country under the Sponsor-A-Tree program, two state-of-the-art nurseries were opened in Karin and Khachpar, several forest rejuvenation programs were implemented in Tsitsernakaberd Park and elsewhere, and a database containing over 7,000 donors was created.

In 2001, Jeff Masarjian joined Armenia Tree Project as Executive Director, replacing Ms. Eddy, and began to redirect ATP’s goals towards more aggressive, all-encompassing reforestation efforts, aimed at rehabilitating devastated rural and urban areas and providing Armenian citizens with the resources as well as incentive for redeveloping their immediate environments. Specifically, visionary programs have been launched in Aygut in the vicinity of Lake Sevan and in Vanadzor, the third largest city in Armenia, located in the Lori region.

Mission Statement

Armenia Tree Project (ATP), a Diaspora-supported non-profit organization (NGO) based in Watertown and Yerevan, conducts vitally important environmental projects in Armenia’s impoverished and deforested zones and seeks support in advancing its reforestation mission. Since 1994, ATP has made enormous strides in combating desertification in the biologically diverse but threatened Caucasus region. Over 1,250,000 trees have been planted and restored, and hundreds of jobs have been created for Armenians in seasonal tree-regeneration programs.

ATP works to further Armenia’s economic and social development by mobilizing resources to fund reforestation. These vital new trees provide food, wood, environmental benefits, and opportunities for economic growth. Our goal is to assist the Armenian people in using trees to improve their standard of living and protect the global environment. In so doing, we are guided by the need to promote self-sufficiency, aid those with the fewest resources first, and conserve the indigenous ecosystem.

In 2006, ATP will work on three major program initiatives:

1) Planting Trees at Urban and Rural Sites 2) Environmental Education and Advocacy 3) Community Socioeconomic Development and Poverty Reduction

ATP has a full-time staff of 70, of whom 66 are employed in Armenia. The Yerevan branch manages two state-of-the-art tree nurseries and a large-scale reforestation nursery, partners with villagers to create tree-based micro-enterprise opportunities, creates urban green belts for public use, restores degraded forest lands, and employs hundreds of part-time workers to restore forests from stumps.