The Eastern Zangazur and Karabakh regions are among the richest regions in terms of species diversity of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus flora. The destruction of a unique ecosystem consisting of oak, juniper, beech, hornbeam, pine, ash, and walnut forests, with a total area of more than 8,000 hectares, has been the most severe blow to endemic biodiversity. Thus, Armenia has violated the provisions of international conventions on ecology and the environment to which it is a party, including the UN Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques. Thus, the forests of Karabakh, rich in the most valuable trees of the flora, have been cut down and transported abroad. The balance of nature has been disrupted, and soil erosion has begun. In the specially protected natural areas with an area of 43 thousand hectares, which remained under Armenian occupation for thirty years - the Basitchay and Garagol State Nature Reserves, the Arazboyu, Lachin, Gubadli and Dashalti State Nature Sanctuaries, 24 fauna and 69 flora species included in the “Red Book of the Republic of Azerbaijan” were protected, most of which have already been destroyed. "The mountainous areas of Karabakh consist of 6 ranges, but the flora of 3 ranges - the Karabakh, Zangazur and Daralayaz ranges - has been under occupation for many years. The forest fund of Karabakh previously amounted to 247,352 hectares, including 13,197.5 hectares of valuable forest areas, 152 natural monuments, and 5 geological objects. 986 hectares of state forest fund, consisting of valuable tree species, 560 hectares of Tuqay forests (riverside forests), and 710 hectares of collective farm forests were destroyed as a result of fires during the occupation, and nothing remains in place to this day.
Six 150-250-year-old plane trees in Aghdam city, eight 200-250-year-old trees in the villages Shelli, Seyidli, Sarıhajili, and Aliaghali, and 71 400-year-old trees around Boyahmadli village, passported and protected as natural monuments, were destroyed. Valuable beech, linden, hornbeam, oak trees were cut down and burned in 26,000 hectares of forest in Lachin, Kalbajar, and Aghdara regions, destroying our forests. The only natural plane tree (Platanus orientalis) forest in Europe is in Zangilan region in the west of the Lesser Caucasus, but for 27 years the plane trees, which had been spreading over an area of 117 hectares, were destroyed and a wood processing plant was built around them. “There are plants areal range of which is limited only to Karabakh,” the professor noted.
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