News

Children from 6 countries will come together to discuss forest management and young foresters’ movement. The FLEG ll Program will carry out a one-week summer camp in Gakh district of Azerbaijan on August 2-9 for the most distinguished activists of the young foresters' movement from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.

FLEG II experts have developed recommendations on testing European methods of growing pine and oak in Ukraine.

 The Forest Law Enforcement and Governance Program (FLEG II) organized two trainings, one in Borjomi and one in Kvareli this July. The sessions were the first time Georgian natural resource law enforcement officials have received legal and practical training directly from active judges, one from the Tbilisi Court of Appeals and one from the Borjomi Magistrate Court, whose jurisdiction includes a significant part of Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park in southern Georgia.

On July 14, 2015 a session about fire prevention and control was delivered in the frames of the school forestry education program. The program is implemented in Tatev, Svarants and Tandzatap communities of Syunik Region of Armenia for school children and teachers with the aim to increase their awareness and knowledge about forests.

One lesson stood out from the rest at a recent trans-boundary meeting of Russian and Belarusian ecotourism businesses – they do not have to wait for someone else to start a program before they can start doing something really innovative in their own communities.

FLEG II held a stakeholders meeting in Ismailly on 3rd July 2015. The purpose of the meeting was to present the initial draft of the Sustainable Forest Management Plan (SFMP) for Ismailly Forest Management Unit to the participants from the government agencies: the Forest Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Ismailly Forest Protection and Restoration Enterprise; to the local communities and authorities in order to obtain their feedback through discussion and incorporate their relevant comments and suggestions into the final report.

FLEG II has purchased a mini-tractor, drilling mechanism, cultivator and rotating cultivator for the Forestry Agency of Ajara (FAA). Under this Program, forest restoration works were initiated in Khulo Municipality of Ajara Autonomous Republic, Georgia. FLEG II contributes to fencing of more than 100 ha of degraded forest near village Bodzauri to protect it from cattle grazing.

Marika Kavtarishvili, FLEG II country program coordinator for IUCN Georgia and a native of the Tusheti region wrote the article describing the Tusheti Protected Landscape Administration’s (TPLA) unique authority to manage the forests in the Protected Area. No other Protected Area in Georgia is under such local control.

In May, 2015 at the session hall of the National Forestry University of Ukraine in Lviv the "ENPI East FLEG II" Programme in cooperation with the State Forestry Agency of Ukraine organized and conducted a professional meeting devoted to the development of hunting economy in Ukraine.