All Preconditions for License to be Declared Invalid by the End of Month – Minister

‘‘We announced back in May that the company - HC Capra Caukasica had to present a management plan and information on other studies within a year. The Department of Environmental Supervision released a statement that this plan had not been submitted and indicated that in their report. Since then, many more statements have been made by the agency, the ministry, and me.

We officially announced that we are starting the procedure for annulling the license, and the National Environmental Agency has initiated this procedure.

All relevant agencies have been notified and records have been pulled. I stress again, that

Very soon, no later than the end of the month, a decision will be reached by the Environmental Agency, and I think there are all the preconditions, considering what I just talked about, for the license to be declared invalid.

However, we should keep in mind that this is an administrative proceeding, which is carried out by the National Environmental Agency, and we should allow it the time and space to properly bring the process to completion,’’ said the minister.

According to him, the protesters were fully informed about these processes back before they escalated and moved the protest from Ambrolauri to Tbilisi, in front of the Ministry.

‘‘As far as I know, this protest started a month and a half ago. We have been saying since May that the obligations are not being fulfilled and that we are thinking about creating a protected area there. A seven-hour meeting was held in Ambrolauri, where we explained to the protesters in detail what processes we were dealing with and what we were planning, and encouraged them to get involved in the creation of a new protected area.

Despite all this, we are seeing an escalation outside the Ministry, which is not desirable to anyone, least of all to me. We see people in this weather spending the night in a tent when there is absolutely no need for it.

I want to call on our fellow citizens participating in the protest to return to their families, to wait for the decision of the National Environmental Agency, which is a dragged-out legal process, but I promise you that this decision will be made very quickly, no later than the end of the month, and there are all preconditions that this The license shall be declared invalid.

It is unclear what purpose this serves. Perhaps the purpose is to score political points, I can think of nothing else. Today, we offered them a meeting with the relevant responsible persons regarding these issues, although there was no specific response from them. They said their immediate goal is to be allowed to pitch a tent on Ministry premises, and then we can talk about the meeting,’’ Otar Shamugia said.

Regarding the statement of David Khidasheli, the owner of HC Capra Caukasika LLC, that he sold the company and therefore the license, the minister assures that the license cannot be sold or transferred without the consent of the National Environmental Agency.

‘‘We are in the middle of considering whether to invalidate the license, so how can the agency consider transferring the license to someone else at the same time, it doesn’t make sense,’’ said the minister.

Since November 18, activists of the Save Rioni Gorge movement have been holding a protest rally in Tbilisi, outside the building of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, demanding the cancellation of the license issued in the forests of Racha and Kvemo Svaneti. Within the framework of the license, the Georgian government has transferred 104,712 hectares of forest for 49 years to David Khidasheli, who is closely tied with the Russian government. Green Alternative and the community organization of Racha appealed this decision in court due to many violations of the law. More on this in the journalistic investigation of Mountain Stories.