The Law on the System of Protected Areas and Its Purpose
The creation, management and protection of protected areas in Georgia are regulated by the Law of Georgia on the System of Protected Areas. This act determines what kinds of territories exist in the country, how the rules for activities within them are written, and what liability applies to breaches of the law's requirements. On this page we explain the core norms that most often reach any nature-use activity — the determination of categories under Article 3, the regulation of activities under Article 20, and the forms of liability under Article 23.
Understanding the law is practical both for entrepreneurs and for persons engaged in tourism, farming or construction on or near a protected area: a violation is established precisely under the rules fixed by this law and by the individual statute of each territory, and it is often the imprecision of those rules that creates the legal basis of a dispute.
Categories of Protected Areas
Article 3 describes the national categories of protected areas. Under the law, the categories of protected areas are: a state nature reserve, a national park, a natural monument, a managed reserve, a protected landscape and a multiple-use area. Each category carries its own protection regime: the strictest regime belongs to the state nature reserve, while the multiple-use area combines protection with designated use.
Beyond the national categories, the law declares that Georgia may host categories included in the international network of protected areas — a biosphere reserve, a world heritage site and a wetland of international importance. This means that one and the same territory may simultaneously belong to a national category and to the international network — with additional international obligations extending to it. Determining the category correctly matters because it is from the category that the verification of the admissibility of an activity begins.
Forms of Regulation Under Article 20
Article 20 provides that activities in protected areas are determined according to the categories, in conformity with international agreements and conventions. The organization of activities connected with protected areas takes place through regulation inside the territory, regulation outside the territory, or temporary regulation. The detailed rules for the regulation of activities are fixed by the individual statute and the management plan of each protected area.
Inside a protected area the law prohibits: the destruction and alteration of natural ecosystems; the destruction, removal, damaging or distressing of any natural resource for exploitation or any other purpose; damage to ecosystems and species through pollution of the environment; the introduction and spread of alien and exotic species of living organisms; the bringing of explosive and toxic substances into the territory; and any other activity not permitted by the individual statute and the management plan of the protected area.
A separate group consists of activities subject to regulation: the admission of visitors at defined places; hunting, fishing, camping, the lighting of fires, trade and commercial activity; the construction of buildings, roads and structures and the alteration of their historic appearance; the use of land, air and water transport on, above or under the territory; the behavior of visitors around the clock; the collection and capture of plants and animals and their removal beyond the territory; the driving out, isolation or destruction of abandoned domestic animals; and the gathering by the local population of a non-renewable natural resource — slate — for traditional buildings or for an activity defined by the management plan, whose extraction rules are determined by the Government of Georgia.
The law also defines the objects of control: inside the protected area, every type of permitted scientific, educational and farming activity is controlled, together with tourist-recreational activity, which must ensure an even distribution of visitor flows, prior registration of selected areas, correspondence of the time and duration of admission to the aims of the territory, and correspondence of the visitor limit to the number of visitors. Temporary regulation applies before the legalization of the category and the approval of the first management plan, as well as during measures to eliminate natural disasters and catastrophes. Outside the territory, the condition of ecosystems and resources in the buffer zone is controlled, together with development programs touching it, preventive measures against harmful activity and the compensation of damage caused.