Animal Movement Route Ready to Go

After ten years of facilitation the future of the Animal Movement Route (AMR) seems finally secured. The AMR Sustainable Development Road Map 2023-2027, facilitated and written by the ALCP2 will become part of the National Pasturelands Management Policy Document of Georgia.

In tandem with Animal Movement Route (AMR) infrastructure development, the Alliances programme has been convening stakeholders for the solution of complex AMR related issues over many years. In 2022, following the request of sheep sector stakeholders, the programme facilitated the synthesis of stakeholder opinion to create a Road Map to enshrine and ensure future sustainability of the Route. The Road Map will now serve as a guideline for the government in sorting out issues including land overlaps, veterinary control and the welfare of nomadic animals. The final draft document was discussed at an ALCP2 Advisory Committee meeting in December 2022, and was finalized in January 2023.

“In four years, we want our country to have an AMR that is problem free and organized. So, the AMR Sustainable Development Road Map 2023-2027, prepared by the ALCP2, is a chance to start real action and take coherent steps for sorting out AMR related, complicated issues we have been facing over the last decade. Thank you to the programme for its effort. Currently we are working on the National Pasturelands Management Policy Document and the AMR Road Map must become a part of it. We will make sure it is approved and implemented by the government” - George Khanishvili, First Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture.

The National Pasturelands Management Policy Document was prepared within the project ‘Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality Targets of Georgia through Restoration and Sustainable Management of Degraded Pasturelands’. The project was initiated by MEPA and financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It is implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and executed by the Regional Environmental Center for the Caucasus (REC Caucasus). The project partner is the Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN).