← All topics
Greenery & climateWorseningirreversible

Tree cutting

Green-space loss

The city is felling mature trees under a 'replacement' program favouring decorative species. Green space per capita has been stuck near ~8.3 m² for three decades, and lost canopy cannot return within a generation.

Pressure index · since 201273
harm
3/5
reach
4/5
trajectory
Worsening
entrenchment
14 years
Evidence: documented

How it began

Gradual creep

Before. Before the Soviet collapse the green frame held. During the 1992–95 energy blockade trees were cut for firewood en masse (national forest cover fell from ~11% to ~7%). Afterwards greenery was lost piecemeal and almost unnoticed — per-capita area froze near ~8.3 m² for 30 years, and no one counted it as loss.

What changed. The Mashtots Park Movement (2012) first turned green-space defence into a loud civic cause; the tree-'replacement' program from 2023 pushed the conflict into an acute phase.

Timeline

  1. Civic actionWin

    The Mashtots Park Movement

    A weeks-long sit-in against commercial kiosks in Mashtots Park. The kiosks were dismantled after public criticism from the president — the first notable civic win for public greenery.

  2. Development

    Opera Square plane trees at risk

    80-year-old plane trees (planted 1937–38) at Mashtots/Baghramyan showed root damage from adjacent construction; ecologists listed already-lost green areas — Dalma, Nork Forest, the gorge slopes.

  3. Decision

    City Hall launches the tree-'replacement' program

    The city starts replacing maples, elms and ash with 'decorative' species — cercis, catalpa, cherry. Cutting decisions rest with the municipal contractor Kanachapatum.

    Yerevan Municipality · Kanachapatum (municipal non-profit)

  4. Civic actionLoss

    2024 protest: a promise not kept

    Around 200 residents rallied at City Hall. Mayor Avinyan came out and promised to suspend cutting and run an independent evaluation. No evaluation happened, no data was released, and cutting resumed in autumn 2024 and spring 2025.

    Tigran Avinyan · Yerevan Municipality

  5. Civic actionOngoing

    Tumanyan St: ~50 trees and a new protest

    The contractor cut about 50 mature trees on Tumanyan St. At the protest, activists warned that losing trees would intensify summer heat and air pollution. This time the mayor did not come out.

    Kanachapatum (municipal non-profit) · Kanach Yerevan · Viktor Tsatryan

    Event →
  6. Media

    Investigation: the chief dendrologist is a former bookmaker

    An EVN Urban investigation: City Hall's chief dendrologist, responsible for cutting decisions, has no relevant education and previously worked as a bookmaker — 6 years of unilateral decisions over the city's trees.

  7. LegalUnlawfulOngoing

    Court: 'replacement' reclassified as 'sanitary cutting'

    At the hearing on Aram Torosyan's lawsuit it emerged that City Hall reclassified the program from 'tree replacement' to 'sanitary cutting' to circumvent legal requirements. By then over 700 mature trees had been destroyed.

    Yerevan Municipality

  8. UpdateLoss

    'Unprecedented damage to green spaces'

    In a year-end review, an ecologist calls the damage to Yerevan's green spaces unprecedented.

Promises & what happened

Claims & fact-check

Red flags

Litigation

Connections

  • AmplifiesAir pollution

    Lost canopy cuts air filtration and intensifies heat — directly raising pollution and disease risk.

  • Enabled byMaster plan & city governance

    Unqualified unilateral decisions and reclassifying 'replacement' as 'sanitary cutting' to bypass the law are a failure of city governance and oversight.

Indicators

Green space per capita
8.3m²/person
as of 2024flat

8.47 m²/person in 1990 → 8.3 m²/person in 2024 (per the new master plan): 34 years on, the greenery lost in the 'dark and cold' 1990s was never restored.

Key facts

Trees destroyed by Aug 2025
>700
Age of lost canopy
70–100 years

Sources