On March 9, 2018, at IOTA Hotel, The Regional Environmental Centre for the Caucasus (RECC) organized inception workshop on “the economics of pasture management in Georgia”. The workshop was held in the framework of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project – “Applying Landscape and Sustainable Land Management (L-SLM) for Mitigating Land Degradation and Contributing to Poverty Reduction in Rural Areas (SLMRA)”, GIZ programme “Integrated Biodiversity Management, South Caucasus IBiS” and the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative, carried out under the GIZ Sector Project SV-BoDeN, founded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The aim of the workshop was to introduce objectives and goals of the ‘economics of pasture management in Georgia – an Economics of Land Degradation case’ study, present ELD 6+1 valuation methodology to assess the economic case for adopting sustainable pasture management practices in Georgia and initial findings of economic assessment for pastoralist households as well as gather feedback from stakeholders on identifying pastures from satellite imagery.
During workshop, the attendees discussed upcoming economic surveys and further sustainable pasture management scenarios for valuation in Georgia.
The meeting was attended by the representatives of the Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture, Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure, National Food Agency, The National Agency of State Property, Kakheti region, Kvemo Kartli region, Association “Farmer of the Future”, Georgian Farmer’s Association, Georgian Shepherds Association, ATLUS IMPACT, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Biodiversity Conservation and Research Centre – NACRES, ISET Policy Institute (ISET PI), Imprescon partners Caucasus, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization, GIZ, IBIS and The Regional Environmental Centre for the Caucasus (RECC).