BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 27
Trend:
The forests of the Caucasus and Central Asia play a key role providing protection against land erosion and soil loss, safeguarding precious biodiversity, serving as carbon sinks, and supporting the livelihoods of the overwhelmingly rural population which inhabits the region, Trend reports with reference to the ‘State of Forests of the Caucasus and Central Asia’ study of a UNECE and FAO
The study said that almost all countries in the region have very low forest cover, between 4 percent and 13 percent.
“The exception is Georgia with 41 percent. There is a wide variety of forest types, including mountain forests, xerophyllous forests (shiblyak), forest steppe, fruit/nut forests, desert and semi-desert forests and flood plain (tugai) forests as well as shelterbelts and planted forests,” the report said.
The study said that all over the region, there are strong anthropogenic pressures on the forests, notably from fuelwood demand for local communities, leading to illegal/ excessive logging, as well as from overgrazing, leading to forest degradation, and from irrigation and hydroelectric schemes along the rivers, leading to loss of forest cover.
“In the region, many forests have been destroyed or degraded, leading to a demand for forest landscape restoration. In June 2018, under the auspices of the Bonn Challenge, seven of the countries in the region met in the Ministerial Roundtable on Forest Landscape Restoration in the Caucasus and Central Asia and six of them committed to identify degraded lands and work to restore and afforest them by 2030,” the study said.
Thus, the study identified the main issues, as described above, as well as the main challenges for the future which may be summarised as follows:
• To maintain and restore existing forests, reducing illegal logging and overgrazing.
• To increase the benefits provided by forests to society.
• To improve the information base for evidence based sustainable forest management.
• To identify and apply best practice in forest management.
• To improve coordination of the various agencies with activities relevant to forests.
• To develop strategies for progress towards sustainable forest management, assign necessary funding and implement them fully.
• To decentralise, to the extent possible, decision making in the forest sector.
• To provide adequate education and training to all those active in the forest sector, after a comprehensive assessment of skills needs.
• To improve social protection and provide decent working and financial conditions for forest workers; in this way, to improve the attractiveness and prestige of forest professions.
• To strengthen forest sector institutions, by allocating sufficient resources from the central budget, as well as removing bureaucratic structures and processes, while maintaining sufficient monitoring and responsibility.
• To integrate sustainable forest management into national development and poverty reduction strategies.
• To improve communication on forest issues, with policy makers, relevant stakeholders and the public.
• To improve organization and coordination of international aid projects, avoiding their duplication and fragmentation while supporting their complementarity, sustainability and coherence with national strategies.