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The Geopolitics of Sheep in an Armenian Region
The Moscow Times, Russia
March 27 2013
On the surface, it looks like a win-win. Iran faces a political
population bomb: a young, growing, urbanized population that wants
food - cheap and traditional. Iran's population has doubled in the
last 40 years, hitting 75 million people today. Half of all Iranians
are under 35 years of age, and 71 percent live in cities.
Immediately to the north lies help: the fallow grazing lands of
Armenia. Fewer Armenian men want to make a living as shepherds,
tending sheep on scenic but lonely mountain slopes. Armenia's
agriculture ministry says that 70 percent of the nation's pastures
are now without livestock - about 800,000 hectares.
Here's the deal: Iran's Ambassador to Armenia, Mohammad Reisi, offers
to rent thousands of hectares of mountain pastures to provide grazing
land for Iranian sheep. With the grazing leases, he has estimated that
Armenia could increase its livestock fivefold. Within a decade, he
says, Armenia could be exporting 2 to 3 million sheep a year to Iran.
Sounds good to me. After all, not too many people are lining up to
invest in Armenia, a small, landlocked nation, with poor relations
with two of its four neighbors. What's more, to the east, Armenia's
borders with Azerbaijan are closed.
On some stretches of territory, soldiers of Christian Armenia
and Muslim Azerbaijan face each other across trenches, poised on
hair-trigger alerts. About once a week, a military sniper on one side
kills a soldier from the other side.
To the west, Armenia's land borders with Turkey are still closed,
a legacy of bitter feelings over Ottoman Turkey's genocide campaign
against ethnic Armenians in 1915.
At first glance, the Iranian offer sounds like a win-win for Armenia.
Yet as environmentalist Hasmik Evoyan told me one morning in Yerevan,
this is naive. She walked me through the geopolitics of sheep. She
showed me why many Armenians saw putting lamb dishes on Iranian dinner
tables as a lose-lose for Armenia.
The sheep would largely graze in Armenia's southernmost region,
Syunik. Long and as narrow as 30 kilometers wide in some places, Syunik
is Armenia's lifeline to Iran. But it is strategically vulnerable,
sandwiched between two territories of Azerbaijan.
Although Syunik is Armenia's second-largest region, it is also one of
its least populated. With 15 percent of Armenia's land area, Syunik
has less than 5 percent of Armenia's people. The population dropped
in the late 1980s after ethnic fighting forced an Azeri minority to
flee to Azerbaijan and northern Iran.
Without a large local population to draw on, the Iranian sheep project
would mean importing Iranian shepherds and possibly their families.
Depending on the age of slaughter - for lamb or mutton - an annual
export of 2.5 million sheep could mean an Iranian flock of 5 million
sheep in southern Armenia. Given the region's steep terrain, it
would be hard for one shepherd to watch more than 500 sheep. So,
back-of-the-envelope calculations point to as many as 10,000 Iranian
shepherds. Where would the shepherds come from?
The memorandum of understanding was signed between Syunik and the
neighboring Iranian region, a place with a name that sounds ominous
to many Armenians - Eastern Atrapatakan, or Eastern Azerbaijan. With a
population 20 times that of Syunik, Eastern Atrapatakan is a keystone
for the northern Iran's Azeri minority, about 17 million people.
The Iranian sheep deal could come with as many 10,000 ethnic Azeri
shepherds, their families, and their watchdogs. But there is another
wrinkle: Over the past 20 years, the withdrawal of Armenian shepherds
from the mountain pastures has allowed the nation's wolf population to
surge. Armenian authorities now pay a $275 bounty for each wolf shot.
So it stands to reason that Iranian shepherds would carry rifles to
protect their flocks from wolves and other predators.
In a nutshell, Armenians say, the Iranian sheep deal would mean
several thousand ethnic Azeri men, most of whom are armed with rifles,
infiltrating into a strategic area.
"With the sheep, a couple of thousand people may come to Armenia, and
may live in places that are strategically important for Armenia," said
Evoyan, the environmentalist and a member of Armenia's PreParliament
opposition group. "It's not only about the employment. As I said,
it's about the informal migration of other nationalities to Armenia
that is not a strategically right choice for Armenia."
On Feb. 14, four days before Armenia's highly contested presidential
election, Evoyan and others protested the sheep deal in front of
Armenia's National Assembly building in Yerevan. I arrived in Armenia's
capital the next day. But Gohar Abrahamyan, a reporter for the Armenia
Now news website, covered the protest. She got environmentalist Silva
Adamyan to say out loud what many Armenians are thinking quietly.
"I remember how the Azerbaijanis were quietly taking control of
Syunik during the Soviet years," Adamyan told Armenia Now. "We have
liberated it. And now, we want to give it to them again? Can't we
really understand that it is the same Azeris - citizens of Iran -
who would be coming back to Syunik with their families, and so the
blood we shed for those lands would turn out to be for nothing?"
In Armenia's presidential election, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan
was re-elected. But the opposition candidate, who performed strongly
and claims the results were falsified, has been leading street
protests. By all indications, the Iranian sheep project will die a
bureaucratic death, buried in the Agriculture Ministry.
James Brooke, based in Moscow, is the Russia/CIS bureau chief for
Voice of America.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-geopolitics-of-sheep-in-an-armenian-region/477592.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
The Moscow Times, Russia
March 27 2013
On the surface, it looks like a win-win. Iran faces a political
population bomb: a young, growing, urbanized population that wants
food - cheap and traditional. Iran's population has doubled in the
last 40 years, hitting 75 million people today. Half of all Iranians
are under 35 years of age, and 71 percent live in cities.
Immediately to the north lies help: the fallow grazing lands of
Armenia. Fewer Armenian men want to make a living as shepherds,
tending sheep on scenic but lonely mountain slopes. Armenia's
agriculture ministry says that 70 percent of the nation's pastures
are now without livestock - about 800,000 hectares.
Here's the deal: Iran's Ambassador to Armenia, Mohammad Reisi, offers
to rent thousands of hectares of mountain pastures to provide grazing
land for Iranian sheep. With the grazing leases, he has estimated that
Armenia could increase its livestock fivefold. Within a decade, he
says, Armenia could be exporting 2 to 3 million sheep a year to Iran.
Sounds good to me. After all, not too many people are lining up to
invest in Armenia, a small, landlocked nation, with poor relations
with two of its four neighbors. What's more, to the east, Armenia's
borders with Azerbaijan are closed.
On some stretches of territory, soldiers of Christian Armenia
and Muslim Azerbaijan face each other across trenches, poised on
hair-trigger alerts. About once a week, a military sniper on one side
kills a soldier from the other side.
To the west, Armenia's land borders with Turkey are still closed,
a legacy of bitter feelings over Ottoman Turkey's genocide campaign
against ethnic Armenians in 1915.
At first glance, the Iranian offer sounds like a win-win for Armenia.
Yet as environmentalist Hasmik Evoyan told me one morning in Yerevan,
this is naive. She walked me through the geopolitics of sheep. She
showed me why many Armenians saw putting lamb dishes on Iranian dinner
tables as a lose-lose for Armenia.
The sheep would largely graze in Armenia's southernmost region,
Syunik. Long and as narrow as 30 kilometers wide in some places, Syunik
is Armenia's lifeline to Iran. But it is strategically vulnerable,
sandwiched between two territories of Azerbaijan.
Although Syunik is Armenia's second-largest region, it is also one of
its least populated. With 15 percent of Armenia's land area, Syunik
has less than 5 percent of Armenia's people. The population dropped
in the late 1980s after ethnic fighting forced an Azeri minority to
flee to Azerbaijan and northern Iran.
Without a large local population to draw on, the Iranian sheep project
would mean importing Iranian shepherds and possibly their families.
Depending on the age of slaughter - for lamb or mutton - an annual
export of 2.5 million sheep could mean an Iranian flock of 5 million
sheep in southern Armenia. Given the region's steep terrain, it
would be hard for one shepherd to watch more than 500 sheep. So,
back-of-the-envelope calculations point to as many as 10,000 Iranian
shepherds. Where would the shepherds come from?
The memorandum of understanding was signed between Syunik and the
neighboring Iranian region, a place with a name that sounds ominous
to many Armenians - Eastern Atrapatakan, or Eastern Azerbaijan. With a
population 20 times that of Syunik, Eastern Atrapatakan is a keystone
for the northern Iran's Azeri minority, about 17 million people.
The Iranian sheep deal could come with as many 10,000 ethnic Azeri
shepherds, their families, and their watchdogs. But there is another
wrinkle: Over the past 20 years, the withdrawal of Armenian shepherds
from the mountain pastures has allowed the nation's wolf population to
surge. Armenian authorities now pay a $275 bounty for each wolf shot.
So it stands to reason that Iranian shepherds would carry rifles to
protect their flocks from wolves and other predators.
In a nutshell, Armenians say, the Iranian sheep deal would mean
several thousand ethnic Azeri men, most of whom are armed with rifles,
infiltrating into a strategic area.
"With the sheep, a couple of thousand people may come to Armenia, and
may live in places that are strategically important for Armenia," said
Evoyan, the environmentalist and a member of Armenia's PreParliament
opposition group. "It's not only about the employment. As I said,
it's about the informal migration of other nationalities to Armenia
that is not a strategically right choice for Armenia."
On Feb. 14, four days before Armenia's highly contested presidential
election, Evoyan and others protested the sheep deal in front of
Armenia's National Assembly building in Yerevan. I arrived in Armenia's
capital the next day. But Gohar Abrahamyan, a reporter for the Armenia
Now news website, covered the protest. She got environmentalist Silva
Adamyan to say out loud what many Armenians are thinking quietly.
"I remember how the Azerbaijanis were quietly taking control of
Syunik during the Soviet years," Adamyan told Armenia Now. "We have
liberated it. And now, we want to give it to them again? Can't we
really understand that it is the same Azeris - citizens of Iran -
who would be coming back to Syunik with their families, and so the
blood we shed for those lands would turn out to be for nothing?"
In Armenia's presidential election, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan
was re-elected. But the opposition candidate, who performed strongly
and claims the results were falsified, has been leading street
protests. By all indications, the Iranian sheep project will die a
bureaucratic death, buried in the Agriculture Ministry.
James Brooke, based in Moscow, is the Russia/CIS bureau chief for
Voice of America.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-geopolitics-of-sheep-in-an-armenian-region/477592.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress