The scope and aims of forest law
The Forest Code of Georgia regulates legal relations connected with forest management. The Code's aims unfold in four directions: the protection of the biodiversity of Georgia's forests and the maintenance and improvement of their qualitative characteristics, and of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of forest resources, for the performance of the ecological, social and economic functions of the forest; the preservation for future generations of the self-sufficient natural and cultural environment — including the vegetative cover and the animal world, monuments of nature and culture in the forest, rare and endangered plant species and other values — and the harmonious regulation of their interaction; the purposeful and rational use of forest resources and other natural potential; and the definition of the basic principles of forest management on which sustainable forest management must rest.
These aims show well the triple character of forest law: the forest is at once an ecological, a social and an economic value, and the law seeks the concord of all three. As a cradle of biodiversity the forest demands protection; as a resource, rational use; and as a common space, fairness toward future generations.
The system of terms — what counts as forest
The Code's definitions set the substantive boundaries of forest law. The forest of Georgia is the totality of forests of state, municipal and private ownership and their resources. A forest is considered to be a territory covered by forest-forming species — an area of at least 10 m width and at least 0.5 hectares of land covered by one or several species of forest-forming woody plant, where the stand density per unit of area is not less than 0.1 — as well as other territory within the forest contour that is an integral part of the forest ecosystem, including open lands used as hay meadows or pastures, special-purpose lands, lands containing a swamp, cliff or scree within the forest, and infrastructure needed for forestry measures.
At the same time the law directly names what is not a forest: a garden, a square or a park outside the forest contour; a windbreak strip; a territory used for short-term rotation up to 30 years from the planting of forest-forming species (a plantation); an arboretum of woody species and other plantations. This negative list is as important as the positive one: without it, it remains unknown whether the forest regime extends to a particular plot of land.
The Code also explains forest resources in detail: they unite timber and non-timber resources; non-timber resources include mushrooms, medicinal raw materials, technical raw materials and other herbaceous plants and their parts, and parts of shrubs and their products that contain no wood. The grading of round timber is also definitional — categories are distinguished by the diameter of the large end. These details are a working instrument for establishing the regime under which a particular resource is used.