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Armenia Southern Region Oak 1- photo
by Alik Malkhasyan
Armenia Southern Region Oak 2 -
photo by Alik Malkhasyan
Shigahough 1
Veteran Oriental Plane
Shigahough 2
Veteran Oriental Plane
Shigahough 3
Veteran Oriental Plane
Shigahough 4
Veteran Oriental Plane |
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Key Contacts:
The ATF seeks a person to act as a link person to groups and ancient
tree activity in Armenia.
Contact us if you would like to know more.
Alik Malkhasyan and his wife Naira
are both passionate about the national identity of Armenia and have sent
these beautiful photos.
Gilbert Addison reports on his recent travels in Armenia "I was in Armenia
earlier this month and was shown this extraordinary valley in the south of
the country that has 200 odd oriental planes lining the stream in the
bottom. Most of them are multi-stem and I suspect are regrowth after the
demise of the single stem original. They are not characteristic of the area
and probably not even native. There is not a tradition of veteran trees and
generally their origin is a bit of a mystery.
Several quasi-mythical explanations have been put forward such as “lining
the old silk road” and a religious one that I have forgotten. Added to this
is the presence of freshwater crabs scuttling around in the leaf litter!
Check out the attached photos – it was uncharacteristically pouring with
rain at the time.
The valley is within a large wildlife reserve (Shigahough – variously
transliterated from Armenian) part funded by WWF and has leopards, wolves,
jackals, bears, ibex and loads of smaller stuff. The dominant high forest
tree is Quercus macranthera plus a lot of hornbeams.
The village/valley is north east of Meghri in the Sunik Marz province of
southern Armenia down on the Iranian border
multi map and is transliterated as Shiccahoff or Shigahough and
gives its name to the surrounding Wildlife Reserve. I was there courtesy of
Peoples Trust for Endangered Species wildlife holidays who give sponsorship
to Persian Leopard Research."
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