Illegal Logging Damages Caucasus Mountain Forests in Georgia

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

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5/8/99

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

Much, if not most, of the World's most significant remaining stands of

ancient forests are threatened by illegal logging to various degrees;

ranging from international mafia like cartels, to local gangs and

armies, down to villagers trying to survive on the economic margin.

It is difficult to visualize movement to attain global forest

sustainability that does not include a concerted, coordinated,

international effort to rein in illegal logging. The latest forests

to fall victim to short term ecological plunder are those of Georgia

in the Caucasus Mountains.

g.b.

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Title: Illegal Logging Damages Caucasus Mountain Forests

Source: Environment News Service -- http://ens.lycos.com/

Date: May 7, 1999

Byline: Nino Chelidze

TBILISI, Georgia, May 7, 1999 (ENS) - Local and foreign timber

producers are using an uncontrollable situation in Georgia to

illegally cut down forests of millions of cubic meters.

There is no legislation comparable to world standards regulating the

use and export of timber in Georgia. Former Soviet laws with two

unimportant amendments regulate this system. The government is in the

process of writing a new bill, but in the meantime uncontrolled

logging continues.

In 1998 Parliament adopted a resolution forbidding commercial cutting

and logging in the whole territory of Georgia, before the new Forestry

Code is adopted. The resolution is still in effect, but is largely

unenforced.

The Forest Ministry says that the recent intensive deforestation

activities are "unprecedented." The almost complete reduction of

timber imports from Russia after 1994 are responsible for the sharply

increased logging, because Russian timber once met more then 85

percent of Georgia's requirements.

Government statistics vary widely on the amount of timber cut each

year. According to information from the Ministry of Environment,

2,500,000 cubic meters are cut yearly. But according to Department of

Forestry statistics only 400,000 cubic meters are logged annually.

In the past, timber was always used as a solid fuel, and common

people, especially peasants, knew which trees to cut for this purpose

and which to leave standing. So, they did not violate the natural

balance. Today in Georgia, timber is mainly used as a solid fuel, but

beyond Georgia's borders its application is in the building and timber

industries.

According to Georgia's Constitution - "The State ensures protection of

environment and utilization of nature taking into consideration

interests of future generations." But this provision is not being

fulfilled today.

A large part of Georgia's mountain forests have been conserved in a

pristine state providing shelter for rare, native plants and animals.

Such forests should be considered as natural resources of

international significance, the country's environmentalists say.

Mountain forests of Georgia have ecological protective functions

especially in Racha, in the northwestern part of Georgia in the

Caucasus central region.

But this protective function is being destroyed as logging on mountain

slopes stimulates landslides and floods.

The logging is proving ruinous for the wildlife as well as unique

health resorts and mineral waters.

In 1996, six people died in flooding caused by deforestation. Thirty

bridges and motorcar routes of 22 kilometres in length were destroyed

and damaged, 200 houses were destroyed, and over 400 hectares of

agricultural lands were submerged. The economic loss was estimated at

four million lari, the Georgian national currency (no U.S. equivalent

available).

In 1997, four people died in logging-related floods and landslides.

The total damages to buildings, roads and bridges and flooded

farmlands was estimated at 38 million lari - nearly ten times the

amount of damage estimated for 1996.

In 1998, no one was killed, but two villages and 26,000 hectares of

land were flooded, motorcar routes were damaged and washed away. The

losses have not been estimated.

Against this background - frightening for such a small country as

Georgia - the Georgian Forest Department and the World Bank intend to

implement a forest economy development project in the mountainous Oni

region.

The project envisages the establishment of a 500,000 hectare

laboratory zone in the central Caucasus region. During the two years

of the project's implementation two so-called specific cutting systems

will be tested. Annually, 1,000,000 cubic meters will be cut under the

laboratory program.

In 1996, 35 species of trees and bushes were counted by forest

inventory. Beeches cover over 50 percent of the territory. The area is

now inhabited by 5,600 people.

The area earmarked to be a part of protected area system in Georgia.

For this reason it was chosen by the World Bank and Georgia's Forestry

Department to implement a demonstration model that can be easily

spread to other mountainous regions.

Friends of the Earth (FOE) Georgia is an large environmental

organisation with 6,000 members and 46 local offices. For the past

four years, FOE Georgia has been working to ban timber export. The

group aims to change or totally stop the World Bank forest laboratory

project. They are running a media campaign, arranging public

discussions, lobbying the government and the World Bank.

The project's authors say that the forests are being renewed annually

by 3,000,000 cubic meters. But environmentalists maintain that old

forests produce ten times more oxygen then new ones, and are more

valuable for wildlife and habitat protection as well as protection

against flooding and landslides.

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