Karabakh, East Zangezur monitoring operations kick off

Monitoring has been launched in the Karabakh and East Zangezur economic regions of Azerbaijan to assess the environmental situation, Azernews reports.

"Monitoring has started in the Basitchay State Nature Reserve on the grounds of the Zangilan District in order to evaluate the ecological environment on the territory of Azerbaijan's Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur Economic Regions and study the elements of biodiversity," said the Head of the Biological Diversity Protection Service Firuddin Aliyev.

According to him, assessment and inventory work is being carried out on the reserve's territory in collaboration with the relevant structures.

"At the same time, camera traps have been installed on the territory to monitor the fauna," he added.

Camera traps have recorded porcupine (Hystrix indica), common pheasant (phasianus colchicus), wild boar (sus scrofa), and other species of fauna in the last week, according to the service's chief.

The Basitchay State Nature Reserve's regulations and sanitary protection zone were previously approved in Azerbaijan in November 2022.

After the liberation of Azerbaijani territories from Armenia's occupation in the 44-day war in 2020, President Ilham Aliyev visited the Basitchay State Nature Reserve in Zangilan District in February 2021.

Aliyev stressed the ecological terror committed by Armenian invaders in the Basitchay reserve and in other occupied lands during the three-decade occupation. He noted that the Armenians had destroyed almost half of the forest area of the reserve and burned the roots and firewood of the trees.

Aliyev planted plane trees in the reserve and released fish to the Basitchay River. He emphasized that the restoration of the Basitchay Nature Reserve has started and Azerbaijan will restore the reserve.

He recalled that Armenia had blocked the rivers, which left other Azerbaijani regions waterless, and that Armenia had been committing environmental terror against Azerbaijan over the past 30 years.

On October 20, 2021, Aliyev signed a decree on the restoration of the Basitchay State Reserve located in Zangilan, part of the Eastern Zangazur economic region.

The decree aims to improve the environment and ensure sustainable use of natural resources on the liberated territories, to preserve the network of specially protected natural areas, rare natural complexes, and objects in their natural state.