The detailed rules of national park permits are placed in the special law on protected areas, which is not included in the basis of this material: what is presented here is the general framework on which those rules rest — the licensed use of wild species, the system of protected area categories in which the national park is one category, and the instruments of state control.
Licensed Use of Wild Species
For the self-reproduction of wild flora and fauna resources and the conservation of biodiversity, their removal from the environment is strictly limited and subject to licensing. In the context of national parks this norm is particularly important: the use of a wild nature resource on the territory of a park takes place by prior permit.
Any action that may harm the world of wild flora and fauna, their habitat, breeding areas, and migration routes is prohibited. The procedure for the protection and use of wild flora and fauna in Georgia is established by Georgian legislation.
The National Park in the System of Categories
The categories of protected areas are: state reserve, national park, natural monument, managed reserve, protected landscape, multiple use area. The national park is one category of this system, and it is precisely the category that determines the circle of permissible activities on the territory.
Georgia admits the existence of categories included in the international network — biosphere reserve, world heritage site, wetland of international importance. Protected areas are created by decision of the Parliament: the creation of a national park is a legislative act.
State Control
State control in the field of environmental protection and use of natural resources is exercised by the Ministry, the Department, the Agency of Protected Areas and the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Agency within the Ministry's system, and the state forest management body. In the supervision of national parks the role of the Agency of Protected Areas is central.
The Department, to secure control, carries out inspections — planned or unplanned checks and surveys. A check is carried out on the basis of an individual administrative-legal act of the minister or the head of the Department; appealing the act does not suspend the check, while a survey requires no act.