First National Action Programme to Combat Desertification

The First National Action Programme to Combat Desertification is a national cross-sectoral programme of Georgia. Its main objectives are to identify territories under threat of desertification and define their areas; to take action to combat desertification through sustainable use of natural resources, adequate planning and conservation activities; to engage competent authorities and institutions in the action to combat desertification; and to develop international cooperation and partnership in order to enhance the action to combat desertification.
The Programme aims to make agriculture and forestry more productive and sustainable. To this end, it provides for defining the status of plant species facing the threat of extinction and/or severe genetic erosion on the basis of threat category criteria established by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN); identification of plant communities facing the threat of extinction / degradation caused by desertification (including rare, relict, primary and the related, particularly sensitive communities, and globally important communities); elaboration of a programme for conservation of rare, endemic and relict species critically threatened by desertification, and its initiation; elaboration of a state programme for protection of endangered biomes and conservation of plants and plant communities; identification of hotspots, determination of ways and means to conserve them and initiation of activities; elaboration and implementation of a state programme for conservation of flood-plain forests; elaboration of a state programme for conservation of arid forests; ecological assessment and mapping of plant communities in the areas threatened for desertification; and improving the level of environmental education among public.
To enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems, the Programme seeks new registration and certification of pasturelands, identification of resources, determination of appropriate grazing pressure norms, rehabilitation of degraded pasturelands; elaboration of a programme for rehabilitation, protection and sustainable use of Georgia’s traditional agriculture, with active involvement of grass-roots organisations; promotion of agriculture-related traditional expertise, research, and relevant programmes; and elaboration of cultivated land management guidelines and plan.
In order to increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the Programme’s actions include identification of desertification-prone territories in Georgia, and comprehensive mapping; identification of drylands in Georgia, and evaluation of the impact of global circulation, radiation and human factors on drought occurrence processes; evaluation of the impact of climatic and hydro-meteorological changes on desertification of drylands, crop distribution and crop yield; construction of physical and mathematical models of drought and desertification processes, and drought prediction; elaboration of drought early warning system; combating drought and desertification by hydro-meteorological, hydrotechnical amelioration and agro-meteorological techniques; study of historical dynamics of climatic elements and parameters in the region under review; determination of hydrological regime of arid lands water resources and their change trends; assessment of water resources deficit in arid lands and its possible variations; assessment of subsoil main structural parameters; developing a theoretical model of the soil desertification process; study of natural and man-induced processes of land damage and desertification (water and wind erosion, mudflows, irrigation erosion, wood clearing, mining and quarrying, etc.), systems analysis, risk projection; study of soil and ground composition, condition and physical-mechanical properties, and zonation of territory by erosion risk; elaboration of a regional model framework for combating land desertification and stabilisation of biospheric processes; elaboration of an integrated plan for reclamation of desertified areas; soil reclamation study of desertification-threatened areas and detailed mapping of salinized and solonetzic soils groupings for agronomic amelioration purposes; inventory of soils affected by open-cast mining and their recultivation methods; and developing a unified monitoring methodology.