Sevan Startup Summit Responds in Detail to Questions Regarding Event Cancellation

The Sevan Startup Summit has released a statement in which they have attempted to comprehensively address all inquiries related to the cancellation of the event.

“Dear friends and interested parties, we are very touched by the response and concern. To avoid the clashes arising in social media comments, we have tried to answer the most frequently asked questions in this format.

- Why is it not possible to organize Sevan Startup Summit 2021 in any other location by the lakeside of Sevan? First, it should be noted that the Sevan Startup Summit is an event that has gone through several stages of development, and the content and concept of the event have distinct characteristics, without which the event would turn into something entirely different. We have no problem organizing any event by the shores of Sevan; our goal is to organize the Sevan Startup Summit. Nobody can imagine better the specifics of the summit's organization than the organizers themselves.

Between 2016 and 2019, a substantial amount of work was accomplished in the territory of the Norashen Sanctuary for the organization of the Sevan Startup Summit. As a result of this work, not only was the area adapted to our concept, but many features were tailored to the site. Thanks to all this, we now have the opportunity to transform a site without any infrastructure into a startup village in just two months.

Bringing any other area of Sevan's shoreline to a suitable condition for organizing the summit requires significant financial resources and tremendous time, which unfortunately we no longer have this year. The summit was held during the last week of July between 2016 and 2019. This timeframe was not chosen randomly as in August people are primarily on vacation and cannot attend the event. If we even put this issue aside for a moment, due to weather conditions, the deadline for organizing the summit on the shores of Sevan is the last week of August. Even if the space to be discussed tomorrow were made available to us with the same freedom of action as in 2019, our organizing team would hardly be able to conduct the Sevan Startup Summit 2021 at a high level.

- Why didn’t we accept the proposal of the Ministry of Environment to hold the Sevan Startup Summit 2021 in another location? Preparatory work for Sevan Startup Summit 2021 began back in March 2021. Since that moment, we have repeatedly tried to understand the Ministry of Environment's position. Numerous attempts were made to meet with the Minister of Environment to discuss the issues earlier. Our requests for communication went unanswered. Given the permissions from previous years, we continued our preparatory work with the reasoning that the area would be provided to us as in previous years. We received a rejection letter from the Ministry of Environment at a time when it was no longer possible to implement the summit in any other location, considering the aforementioned circumstances. Furthermore, all other alternative sites proposed did not meet the necessary infrastructure and size requirements.

As a result, our dialogue with the Ministry of Environment extended until June 19.

- Why couldn't Sevan Startup Summit 2021 be organized in the Norashen Sanctuary with the conditional permission granted by the Ministry of Environment? The conditional permission from the Ministry of Environment, which we justifiably consider a non-permission, can be evaluated as verbal manipulation. When the permission to hold the summit is accompanied by conditions such as the reduction of preparatory activities, prohibition of bonfires, restriction on the entry of any vehicles, and exclusion of sound and light equipment, it indicates that either the party discussing the issue is completely unaware of the matter, or, taking certain circumstances into account, the rejection of the area was intentionally prolonged due to bureaucratic hurdles. You can make your own conclusions regarding the reasons.

In any case, the stated requirements made the organization of the event more than impossible.

The core history and essence of the issue. The fact that the concept of the Sevan Startup Summit conflicted with the rules and norms of the Norashen Sanctuary and protected natural areas is something we are more aware of than many officials responsible for managing the sector. We have addressed this issue with the current government in detail since June 2018 when an inter-agency committee was created at the suggestion of the Prime Minister to address the issue (Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Territorial Administration, Ministry of Communication and Transport, Ministry of Economy, Gegharkunik Marzpetaran) to examine and resolve the issue. As a result, it was decided not to prohibit the holding of the summit in the Norashen Sanctuary, considering state interests, and to move the discussions after the Sevan Startup Summit 2018. Following the summit, there was also a discussion about finding another area within the Sevan National Park that would be somewhat suitable for our event's concept and more compliant with the legally established norms. From September 2018 to May 2019, following discussions with representatives of the Ministry of Environment and Sevan National Park, we concluded that no other second suitable location existed where we could achieve what we obtain by organizing the event in the territory of the Norashen Sanctuary with reasonable resource allocation.

In this regard, upon the proposal of the Ministry of Environment, a professional commission was established with the participation of several environmentalists and representatives of relevant departments to examine the possibility of transferring the status of the Norashen Sanctuary area we needed to the Startup Armenia Foundation for trust management. As a result of this commission's work, several interesting circumstances were revealed. Among them, it is important to mention that according to current legislation of the Republic of Armenia, areas that contain artificial plantations cannot have a protected status. Moreover, the very area of the sanctuary that we use is entirely an artificial plantation formed as a result of tree planting conducted in the 1950s-1960s.

A considerable area of the sanctuary, which includes the area of our event, will remain underwater in case of planned water level rises (if the water rises to just 1902.5 meters) and will create serious environmental problems. At that time, the absolute height of the water in Lake Sevan was 1900 meters. Now it stands at 1901 meters. According to the estimates of experts from the mentioned commission, the water level will reach 1902.5 meters in just five years, and all trees in the Norashen Sanctuary will be cut down, transforming the area into a swamp.

There is also a serious problem with the breeding of Armenian Gulls in the sanctuary that the state has been unable to resolve. The eggs of the gulls breeding outside the islands that are part of the sanctuary become food for roaming foxes and other animals.

Thus, with the results of the work with this commission, we reached the conclusion that the area of the sanctuary that we need for conducting the event should be transferred to us for trust management with a change in status. As a phased solution to the issue, first, the part of the sanctuary that would remain underwater in a few years and where there is an artificial plantation (including our area) was subjected to a status change by government decision, while the remaining part that would continue to remain as a habitat for the Armenian Gull due to planned water level rises formed the Norashen Sanctuary. By that time, the time to hold Sevan Startup Summit 2019 had already arrived, and we held the event in the now modified status of the Norashen Sanctuary. We agreed to finalize the process after the summit.

After SSS19, the process of legalizing our activities in the area continued. Discussions proceeded in such a way that the part of the Norashen Sanctuary that we needed would remain underwater in a few years anyway. For this reason, the transfer of that area to us was viewed as fully advantageous for the government in every respect. We, in turn, pledged to carry out all necessary measures to save the lakeshore from swamping in conjunction with the rising water, and we covered the fencing of areas within the Norashen Sanctuary where the Armenian Gull breeds to protect the chicks from foxes and other animals.

This process continued until March 2020. As a result of our extensive work, we reached a point where it was necessary to make a few additions to the regulatory norms and legislative acts governing the sector by government decision and achieve a legal and moral solution to the issue, balancing state, private, and narrow environmental interests. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 interrupted this process and it has not resumed since then due to circumstances unknown to us.

The environmental issue caused by conducting the event in the Norashen Sanctuary is artificially inflated at present. There is an attempt to represent our activities as crimes against nature, performing a series of actions that disrupt the habitat of the Armenian Gull. The important points raised by us regarding the conduction of the event receive inappropriate assessments from incompetent individuals. The benefits created as a result of the event and the real state interest are artificially opposed to fabricated environmental complexes and meaningless interests.

We acknowledge that in some ways we are demanding an area where gulls have started to inhabit at this moment. However, when it is evident that the area in question will not exist sooner or later and when it is clear that there is a water level rise and swamping problem in just a few years, it becomes evident that the issue is simply being exaggerated.

Ultimately, governments are formed not only to manage public resources according to existing laws, but also to correct wrong decisions made due to certain unclear circumstances, legislate changes and improve the legislative framework.”