GOFC-GOLD Regional Networks Summit CaucRIN Giorgi Ghambashidze and Volker Radeloff

CaucRIN Network Summary Established September 11-12 2017 Co-lead by Giorgi Ghambashidze and Volker Radeloff Focus on forest and agricultural land use changes Degradation of forests, pastures and agriculture Whole basin assessment for the Kura River 35 participants from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia (and the US) Good representation of agency scientists, universities, and NGOs

CaucRIN Network Summary Established September 11-12th, 2017 Co-lead by Giorgi Ghambashidze and Volker Radeloff Focus on forest and agricultural land use changes Land cover map for the entire Caucasus Degradation of forests, pastures and agriculture Whole basin assessment for the Kura River 32 participants from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkey (plus the US) Good representation of agency research institutes, universities, and NGOs

CaucRIN Network Summary Critical issues Political situation both challenging and interesting Long history of conflicts Iranian participation? Funding Recent NASA LCLUC call included a Caucasus focus GIZ and Worldbank quite active No research project accomplishments from CaucRIN yet

CaucRIN Network Summary First meeting just ended Next meeting planned in about 12 months CaucRIN is needed because current monitoring efforts focus on single countries only No trainings yet, but strongly desired, and planned Planned Website with geoportal for the Caucasus Joint contemporary land cover map Joint land use change maps Challenges Need to build a leadership team from the region …

Thank you! Wish us luck ;-)