Minister of Environment Hakob Simidyan received German Ambassador to Armenia Victor Richter, Senior Project Portfolio Manager of the German Reconstruction Loans Bank (KfW) Frank Mörschl.

Secretary General of the Ministry Sergo Atanesyan and Head of the Specially Protected Areas and Biodiversity Policy Department of Nature Voskehat Grigoryan participated in the meeting.

Welcoming the colleagues in the Ministry of Environment, Minister Hakob Simidyan once again referred to the Armenian-German cooperation in the field of environment and, in particular, to the long-term practical cooperation between the German Bank for Reconstruction Loans (KfW) and the Ministry.

During the meeting, the parties summarized the current plans, discussed the inventory problems, and outlined future actions.
The minister presented the process of creating the Environmental Protection Service to his colleagues.
Currently, the protection of forests and specially protected areas of nature is carried out by employees who carry out protection, who have low social protection, little technical equipment and powers (the right to carry service weapons), work with a five-day and eight-hour work schedule defined by the Labor Code (09:00- 18:00), have low technical equipment, as a result of which it is not possible to fully ensure the proper protection of the territories. According to the analysis results, it becomes clear that the offenders, taking advantage of the above-mentioned legal regulations, carry out forest violations mainly on non-working days and hours.

Based on the results of the analysis, it was considered appropriate that proper control of the protection of forests and specially protected areas of nature is not possible with the current small number of employees carrying out protection because the task of the employees is not only to detect violations of forest legislation within the limits of the jurisdiction defined by the law but also to ensure prevention, prevention, which is possible only in case of round-the-clock duty.

Therefore, it is planned to create an Environmental Protection Service, unified management of the positions of the employees of the "Hayantar" SNOC and the specially protected natural areas management through a standard service with a duration of 24 hours of working time, which will ensure the continuous control of the areas and facilitate cases of violations—early detection and prevention.
The perspectives of cooperation during the launch of the service were discussed.

During the meeting, reference was also made to the program "Biodiversity and sustainable local development in Armenia," a total budget of around 26 million euros, provided by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through KfW.

The "Protected Areas Support Program-Armenia" program implemented with the financial support of the German Revolving Credit Bank (KfW) was discussed, within the framework of which the environmental and socio-economic and targeted investment programs aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the protection of protected areas and forest areas of Syunik region and their preservation are being discussed. to the development of the capacities of implementing structures.

An agreement was reached to continue the meeting discussions and to undertake the full implementation of the obligations arising from the bilateral signed agreements in a partnership atmosphere.