The South Caucasus faces urgent environmental challenges

Environmental degradation hampers socio-economic development in the South Caucasus, according to published research by regional experts. While the three South Caucasus states – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – have adequate legislative frameworks to address environmental challenges, they lack comprehensive planning mechanisms to promote sustainable growth.

The findings, contained in an academic paper entitled Biodiversity, conservation and sustainability in Asiahave broad implications for public health and food security in the region. The three problems identified by the researchers as the most immediate threats to the environment are soil erosion, deforestation and poorly planned urbanization.

“At the present stage, an important task is to create a methodology for determining not only the condition but also the potential of transformed landscapes,” state the authors in their book chapter, titled The main problems of the sustainable development of the South Caucasus and the processes of transformation of landscape (ecosystem) biodiversity.

Soil degradation is closely related to unsustainable agricultural practices. According to the values ​​used by the authors, more than 50% of the region’s landscapes are “heavily modified”, exacerbating soil erosion and soil degradation. Overgrazing by livestock is a major source of soil degradation, driving desertification in some areas. This, in turn, puts additional economic pressure on many rural communities, making them “even more dependent on imported goods,” the authors argue.

Deforestation is a natural phenomenon in the South Caucasus, which is significantly exacerbated by human activity, including the clearing of land for agricultural purposes. The authors add that “irregular and rapacious exploitation of forests has been followed by the activation of geodynamic processes in many regions,” accelerating degradation. The decrease in the number of trees, correspondingly, aggravated soil erosion caused by wind.

Rapid urbanization fueled by increased rural-urban migration is another emerging challenge. High population densities in cities such as Tbilisi, Yerevan and Vanadzor have led to “particularly severe” levels of pollution, producing rapid increases in cases of respiratory disease while threatening adequate supplies of drinking water. The result is an increase in social tension due to dwindling resources.

According to the authors, the authorities are trying to address pressing issues, but they are doing so in a patchwork fashion. “The problem of biodiversity conservation is still one of the most serious problems,” they say, adding that there is room for improvement in areas such as landscape management, reforestation efforts and water resource conservation. The authors recommend the development of technical landscape assessments as a tool for developing targeted conservation strategies.

“Many areas have failed to take into account the ecological requirements of the population, and this has become a prerequisite for environmental degradation in several regions,” the authors state. The main authors of the chapter are three Georgian scholars: Nodar Elizbarashvili, Nino Sulkhanishvili and Rusudan Elizbarashvili.

By Irakli Machaidze via Eurasianet.org

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