There are several protected areas (National Park, Strict Nature Reserve, Protected Landscape) in Georgia’sTusheti region. However, their management is inadequate – no forest inventory has been conducted and there are no systematic guidelines the authorities could follow. As a result, forest ecosystems are undergoing degradation (destabilisation, risk of extinction of certain types of vegetation) and due to an absence of a logging plan, natural resources are not properly utilized. For this reason, it is necessary to carry out the monitoring of forest ecosystems, and establish a forest management system which would allow for an economical utilization of forest resources while at the same time taking care of the development and sustainability of forest ecosystems.

The project will increase the qualification and know-how of employees, working at Tusheti Protected Landscape and Tusheti Protected Areas management offices, in the area of monitoring of forest vegetation and forest management. The project further aims at setting up a model of sustainable forest management, based on current data on the state of forest ecosystems, which will be then reflected in the forest management plan.

The expected outcomes of the project will be a series of maps and methodologies for forest inventory and forest management planning, an evaluation of forest ecosystems in the terms of their exposure to negative biotic factors (especially insects), and a methodology for basic forest management with emphasis on forest protection and sustainable forest management.

An integral part of the project will be a series of training sessions (workshops) for forest management workers and other stakeholders, in which they will be familiarized in detail with the various methodologies, mapping outputs, their utilization and will also be trained in basic field data collection and processing. Beneficiaries will thus be able to independently carry on with the elaboration, update and utilization of available data.