Forestry Resources of Georgia, (Page
I)
Georgia is rich with forests. Forests
are the most important element of the country’s
geographical landscape. The total area of the forest
fund is 3006.4 thousand hectares – 43.3% of the
whole territory of Georgia (69 700 km2). The woodlands
area accounts for 2773.4 thousand ha, 39.9% of the
country’s territory. This indicator, called percentage
of afforestration is quite high in Georgia. For comparison,
world afforestration indicator makes 27% and in neighboring
countries of Georgia (Azerbaijan, Armenia, North Caucasus,
Turkey, Iran and etc) it hardly reaches 15%.
The total supply of forest resources
is 451.7-mln m3.
The distribution of forest fund lands
and stands by regions and organisations are given
in appendixes 1;2 and the distribution of forest areas
(under the jurisdiction of the State Department of
Forestry of Georgia) by land and forest categories,
regions, wood varieties, age categories and stand
reserves are given in appendixes 3;4.
Special physical and geographical
location, diverse climatic conditions and the location
on the crossing of landscapes of different geneses
has resulted in an immense variety of flora in Georgia
including certain rare wood species in the forests.
The forests are rich with precious
wood species. There are 400 species of trees and shrubs
represented in the forests of Georgia as well as lots
of relict and endemic flora. There are coniferous
and deciduous evergreen species, crawling shrubs and
gigantic trees (60 m tall, 2 m diameter), lianas,
various mushrooms, wild fruits and berries (crab-apple,
wild pear, chestnut, nut, raspberry, etc), medical
herbs and plants for technical raw materials, precious
variety of wood (fir, silver-fir, maple), ritual herbs
(cherry-laurel, plush, willow, etc), also precious
raw material is rhododendron-tea.
The most of the forests (97%) are
located on the slopes of main and small Caucasian
Mountain systems, the rest - on Colkheti lowland and
valleys of East Georgia.
The forests are spread from the sea
level to 2600 m above the sea level. The greatest
part (70%) of forests is located 1000 m above the
sea level and 80% are arranged on more than 20 sliding
slopes.
Due to hard relief conditions the
main function of forests is soil-protection and water-regulation.
Resort, esthetic, scientific and other functions are
important as well.
The most attention is paid to establishment
and expansion of the systems of protected territories
in the country. At present these systems occupy not
more than 3% of the territory of Georgia. In future,
it is considered to increase protected territories
up to 20%. Forests cover the greatest part of protected
territories (70%). It is worth of mentioning that
500 thousands ha are endemic, untouched forests.
Forest usage is based on the principles
of sustainable development, rational utilization,
preservation and improvement of ecological balance,
useful functions and bio-diversity.
At present, with the assistance of
World Bank, the project for support of Development
of Forestry Management in Georgia is under preparation.
The project considers actual problems of forest rehabilitation
and forest usage.
Of the types of forest usage, wood
resources and wood usage have been well researched.
Other forest resources (apart from wood) are of equal
importance (mushrooms, fruits, berries, seeds of the
forest herbs, medical and technical raw materials,
ritual herbs). There is a wide enough range and quite
a large quantity of these resources, that may have
potential industrial importance. These resources are
less studied but could be of the same importance as
wood utilization, provided the appropriate research
and market analyses are done.
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Source of this information: http://web.sanet.ge/mospm/Invest-guide/forest-ig-mspm.html
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