496 Illegally Felled Trees and AMD 114.7 Million in Damage Identified at “Tumanyan Forestry”; EPMIB Submits Report to the Investigative Committee of the RA

In accordance with the 2026 inspection programme of the Environmental Protection and Mining Inspection Body of the Republic of Armenia (EPMIB), an inspection was carried out at the “Tumanyan Forestry Enterprise” branch of “Hayantar” SNCO, covering the period from November 2022 to June 2026.

The inspection revealed and documented numerous violations in the field of forest use, including:

• 496 illegally felled trees of various species and diameters;
• the amount of damage caused to flora was assessed at AMD 114,686,928;
• forest felling was carried out without the consent of the authorised body and without a positive conclusion from the environmental impact assessment process;
• roads with a total area of 8,320 sq. m were constructed without the required approval of the relevant designs, without a positive expert conclusion on environmental impact assessment, without obtaining the consent of the authorised body, and in the absence of forest management plans;
• in the documents confirming the right to forest use, the volumes of timber resulting from the felling of broken and fallen trees were additionally included in the volumes specified in the felling permits following the exploitation of cutting areas and were recorded in the accounting documents;
• the data contained in the felling permits did not correspond to the data established by the forest management plans;
• documents confirming the right to forest use were issued after the approval of the forest management plans and did not correspond to the management plan;
• forest restoration measures were not carried out in forest lands subjected to clear-cutting;
• timber residues were not removed from the cutting areas.

Based on the results of the inspection, EPMIB submitted a report to the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia concerning cases containing apparent indications of a criminal offence.

Administrative liability measures prescribed by law will be applied in relation to the other violations identified during the inspection.