Rural communities in Armenia give mining companies the boot
In 2018, a group of local residents in Armenia’s Tavush region decided to stand up to a mining company. Now other communities are following suit as a revolution of ‘direct democracy’ seems poised to sweep the countryside. Mining companies in Armenia’s hinterlands have met with new forms of public resistance that some herald as the rebirth of local democracy in the countryside. Recent mining projects in the Armenian regions of Vayots Dzor and Tavush have provoked protest, boycotts, and