Endangered species and their habitats
When speaking of wild nature under threat of extinction, we usually begin with the status of a species — the Red List or an international classification. Georgian legislation approaches the issue more broadly: first, it protects the ecosystems in which these species live — including aquatic objects; second, it regulates the removal of wild flora and fauna from the environment through licensing; and third, it places endangered species in a separate registration system. Together these three instruments create the legal space in which the protection of endangered species grows.
Protection of ecosystems — including aquatic habitats
Natural ecosystems, landscapes and territories must be protected from pollution, violation, damage, degradation, exhaustion and destruction. Protection extends, inter alia, to: the sea coastal zone; wetlands, spring heads, the sources of reservoirs and rivers, glaciers, caves; subalpine and floodplain forests; valuable forest massifs; green zone forests; sanitary protection zones and territories. The evident dominance of aquatic ecosystems in this list makes it clear: the sources of rivers, wetlands and spring heads are precisely the habitats where many freshwater species live and breed.
Any activity related to the use and management of natural ecosystems, landscapes and territories, and the management regime, is carried out taking into account environmental protection norms and requirements. This means that habitat protection is the first line of species protection: if an aquatic object is damaged, the species' positions are also endangered. The classification of aquatic habitats is particularly important in this system, because the breeding areas of most endangered freshwater species lie precisely on territories of this type. Protecting spring heads and river sources is not opposed to species protection — on the contrary, it is the spatial condition without which any species programme is futile.
Licensing of wild flora and fauna
For the self-reproduction of wild plant and animal resources and the maintenance of biodiversity, their removal from the environment is strictly limited and subject to licensing — apart from the granting of the right to prepare timber as a result of an auction conducted by the forest management body under the Forest Code. Licensing simultaneously provides quantitative and procedural control over the use of a species.
At the same time, any action that may harm the world of wild plants and animals, their habitats, breeding areas and migration routes is prohibited. In the habitat dimension this prohibition is especially significant: no one may remove a species from the environment, but if its breeding area is destroyed, the result is the same. The rules of protection and use of wild flora and fauna are established by Georgian legislation.