Georgian forests in 9 questions (and answers)

How are Georgian landslides connected with the trees in Racha? Should we be even bothered by this as tourists in countries in the Caucasus? Today we focus on Georgian forests and why in some time Georgian mountain slopes may look totally different.

Georgia is one of 34 countries in the world with the highest level of biodiversity and one of the highest levels of endemism. So the type of nature which you can’t find anywhere else in the world. In Georgia you will find trees typical for this region from ancient times. All this results in our admiration of Georgian nature and landscapes and all the forests, mountains, rivers and glaciers are the places we take photos of the most often to remember them well after our holidays. And we talk about these with our friends telling them how beautiful Georgia is.

Georgian forests, however, have a slight problem and this is a problem with us, humans. Exactly about this relation I want to talk more in our Caucasus podcast. One of the factors impacting the whole region’s ecosystem is the deforestation. Of course the Caucasus is not the only place where it happens but we focus here on this region, so the time has come to cover deforestation in Georgia.

How the deforestation in Georgia impacts the ecosystem?

The deforestation in Georgia firstly leads to the changes in the forests’ structure, their degradation and to decrease of the biodiversity levels in the region. Sometimes you plant new trees in the place of the former ones, the ones you cut, but often they grow much faster, are foreign to the region and may these may be more aggressive species. As a result it changes what forest can offer to the animals living in it and inhabitants living next to it. Once flora and fauna starts to change, the climate changes as well.

How did the Georgian forests situation look like in 20th century?

The changes in Georgian forests structure is not a process that started yesterday. 20th century brought many events to them. During the world wars forests were burned down by the invaders as a part of their military strategy. In the early decades of USRR (1930-1950) the massive and extensive deforestation was conducted because the timber was heavily used in numerous branches of industry. Back then they were not focusing that much on the nature’s preservation.

In the second half of 20th century (1950-1990) already some preservation initiatives appeared so reclamation of deforested areas and planting new trees in places of extensive timber gathering. However, also in this period the Georgian forests were massively exploited, among other by collective farms, so called kolhoz, achieving various economic plans of the republic.

Turbulent 90s of 20th century in Georgia additionally brought Georgian forests the period of increased, often illegal deforestation and not fully controlled usage of the timber for heating purposes. No, we don’t talk about the number of cubic meters which an ordinary Georgian could pun on their Zhiguli car and take it to their family for making the house war. But we’ll come back to the statistics.

In the end of 90s started to appear in Georgia financial support programs, e.g. from World Bank or UN which aimed at Georgian forests preservation or extensive deforestation counteractions. Nevertheless, as it often happens with forests and nature, it may take several decades if not centuries to restore what was degraded. And that’s even not always possible as we talk here about regions with endemic species, not present anywhere else in the world.

How many forest hecaters disapeared in Georgia?

Now, let’s look at some statistics. According to Global Forest Watch between 2001 and 2022 over 11 thousands of Georgian forests disappeared, from which in the last seven years the area of Georgian forests decreased by 2 thousands hectares. This may sound a bit abstract so imagine a football field. Now, imagine 3100 football fields. This is the area of forests which disappeared in the last 7 years. In these data we talk about whole Georgia, including Abkhazia and South Osetia.

When you look deeper and closer, you see that during last two decades the highest decrease happened in three regions – Samtskhe Javakheti, Kakheti and Samegrelo-Svaneti. The deforestation in these regions is responsible for over 50% of deforestation in the whole Georgia. Here one calculates the numbers no matter the cause, so including the direct cutting of the threes for timber as well as fires and forest burning on purpose. Forests can degrade also due to illnesses, also often caused by human activity. Here, unfortunately, there are not that many statistics available because similar to the Georgian deforestation being in a gray zone for many years, there were no sufficient funds to conduct research.

Where are the forests in Georgia?

Let’s look now on the Georgian forests in the wider context, so the landforms in Georgia. One estimates that 98% of Georgian forests grow on the mountain slopes. If you think now about Georgian landscapes, you see there are not many wide valleys. And there are two factors connected with it.

Firstly, only a part of mountain can be covered with forest because from some altitude trees simply cannot grow. Therefore, it’s not that the whole Georgia can be covered with forests.

Secondly, a tree as any other plant to some extent, binds the soil and helps soil to stick to something on this mountain. The lesser the trees, and other plants as a result, smaller the chances the soil will stick to the mountain rocks. The weaker it sticks, smaller the chances are the plants will grow there. Additionally, the weaker it sticks, the greater chances are it will slide after a heavy rain. Then, you observe the flash floods, mud flood and landslides. For example on the mountain resorts where tourists spend their holidays. The gravity is relentless on our planet.

Why is the topic of forests exploitation important also for tourists?

Why do we even cover this in the Caucasus podcast? Why this topic impacts anyone whop was at least once in Georgia? Even if you were not marching across the Georgian forests with a huge ax in your hand to take home Georgian timber as a souvenir?


The forests extensive exploitation, e.g. in order to build new resorts and touristic infrastructure is also one of the issues we observe nowadays. For example so you can go even closer by car to glacier or even deeper in the wild forest of Georgia. There are many mor aspects like this, we’ll just mention the ones we observe the most often on the tourist groups of Facebook for example.

How can you restore Georgian forests?

Deforestation or other forms of extensive usage of forests is connected with additional topic which is the chances to restore those terrains to the state they were earlier. Looking at the Soviet Georgia experience you may notice that the areas destroyed the most and according to the research conducted in 2015 almost impossible to restore are the areas of the former collective farms.

The forest structure is widely damaged there and one has introduces the plan species that completely changes the ecosystem. As a result those are also the areas with progressing soil erosion or the soil slide completely from there with almost nothing left. The restoration process of such terrains takes much more that a lifetime of one generation. And it results in more often happening landslides and avalanches as well as climate changes in the region.

What are the statistics of illegal deforestation in Georgia?

Let’s look once again at the official Georgian data on the illegal deforestation. In 2019 there were over 3.5 thousand cases of it and one estimates there were over 21 thousands cubic meters of timber cut down. In 2020 there were over 3 thousands of such cases and over 16 thousands cut down. In 2022 Georgian governmental institutions registered over 12 thousands of any illegal actions connected with forests, including over 4 thousands of illegal deforestation cases. We talk here only about the cases that were registered so someone got caught. For comparison, statistic Polish person uses 1 cubic meter of timber per year, so those were not the cases of people just gathering the wood for winter.

What happens with the acquired timber (both, legally and not so much)? According to many sources analyzing Georgian deforestation in many cases the timber is exported to the external industries connected with wood business or as a fuel material.

What is the social aspect of Georgian disappearing forests?

As one of the last parts in today’s episode of the Caucasus podcast let’s look at the social and economic aspects of the Georgian forests. For many centuries in various regions, including the Caucasus the forest helped the local inhabitants to survive. Thanks to sustainable, non-industrial harvesting of plants or fruits (you don’t forage mushrooms that much in the Caucasus region), hunting for animals living there or gathering the timber for making your house warm in winter many families survived turbulent times. Even now there are some places in Georgia where the forest still has this role. Or it would have if not its degradation.

One of the actions that negatively impacts this coexistence between local inhabitants with the nature is leasing the Georgian vast forest areas to big companies. The example of it may be Racha region, picturesque place where is 2022 the decision on creating a national park was stopped by leasing over 100 thousands hectares of forests to one of the Russian oligarchs. Some areas of potential national part were included in the lease.

There were more of such or similar situations across the last decades but I will not list all of them here. The changes of nature in Georgia due to human activity is a vast topic, much wider than we covered today. In this episode of the Caucasus podcast we tried to show you one of those aspects so the Georgian forests situation and its consequences for the whole region and us as well. The climate changes in the Caucasus impact directly or indirectly the whole world.

What can we do for the Georgian forests?

It would be great to finish this episode with some kind of call to action. Don’t buy this or do this. Support something or do not support something else. However, this what we wanted to achieve with this episode of the Caucasus podcast was to show you the broader context. So that whatever you do or any decision you make, you can do it consciously, or at least more consciously.

Resources we used to create this episode: