Wealth in Fewer Sheep: How SABUKO is Reimagining Pastoralism for Nature and People
The article was originally published by CAMCA talking magazine #3
Author: Ana Dumbadze
SABUKO (Society for Nature Conservation) is a Birdlife Partner, Georgia based organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity and promoting sustainable development through conservation initiatives. The organization focuses on safeguarding key ecosystems, supporting species conservation, and working closely with local communities and stakeholders to implement practical conservation actions. SABUKO is also involved in research, environmental education, and other-relevant projects aimed at balancing ecological preservation with responsible land use and long-term environmental resilience.
Across the windswept steppe landscapes of southeastern Georgia, on the Iori Plateau, a centuries-old journey unfolds every year. In spring, shepherds begin their long migration northward, guiding flocks on foot from the dry winter pastures of Kakheti toward the alpine meadows of Tusheti. This movement, known as transhumant pastoralism, is more than a farming practice. It is a cultural rhythm, an ecological system, and a living bridge between people and landscape.
For generations, nomadic shepherding has shaped both Georgia’s mountain culture and its biodiversity. The shepherd and the flock travel hundreds of kilometers annually, producing wool, meat, and one of the country’s most distinctive dairy treasures, Guda cheese, matured in traditional sheepskin bags. The aesthetic and symbolic dimensions of this practice of the slow ascent into the mountains, the resilience of herders navigating difficult terrain, and the communal production of cheese are as remarkable as its economic importance. Yet today, this ancient system stands at a crossroads.
Landscapes Under Pressure
The Iori Plateau, including Chachuna Managed Reserve, Samukhi Valley, Kotsakhura Ridge, and the Vashlovani Protected Areas, is a region of exceptional ecological value. Its floodplain forests, semi-arid steppes, and riverine ecosystems sustain species such as the goitered gazelle, eastern imperial eagle, griffon vulture, Eurasian lynx, striped hyena, and numerous steppe birds. These landscapes are not empty wilderness, but are living systems shaped by centuries of interaction between wildlife and pastoral communities.
For a long time, a relative balance existed between grazing and regeneration. However, during the Soviet period, structural shifts in land governance and the loss of access to winter pastures in neighboring republics concentrated grazing pressure on the remaining lowland areas of Georgia. Overgrazing intensified, soil erosion accelerated, and desertification began to transform the steppe into increasingly fragile terrain.
Environmental degradation here cannot be understood purely as an ecological failure. It is deeply economic. When pastoral livelihoods depend on maintaining large herds to remain profitable, the land inevitably absorbs the pressure. In such contexts, conservation measures alone are insufficient. The roots of environmental decline must be addressed within the economic realities of local communities. This understanding lies at the heart of the work carried out by the Society for Nature Conservation – SABUKO.
Conservation Through Coexistence
Since 2019, with the support of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, SABUKO has been implementing a large-scale landscape restoration project across the Iori Plateau. Rather than separating people from nature, the initiative seeks to rebuild a functioning ecological network where biodiversity conservation and sustainable human livelihoods reinforce one another.
Restoration efforts include the introduction of rotational grazing systems to allow degraded pastures to recover, the protection and rehabilitation of floodplain forests, and the application of active land management techniques designed to improve water access and vegetation resilience. At the same time, scientific monitoring tracks the status of key species and habitats, ensuring that conservation actions are grounded in evidence. SABUKO also works to strengthen environmental legislation and natural resource governance, expand protected areas, and invest in environmental awareness and community engagement.
The creation of the Samukhi Protected Area itself reflects this philosophy: environmental protection and sustainable use must advance together. Humans are not external to ecosystems, but are part of them. Cultural diversity, including pastoral traditions, is intertwined with ecological diversity. Within this framework, nomadic pastoralism is not framed as a problem to eliminate, but as a practice that must evolve toward sustainability.
From Quantity to Value: The DOVLATI Model
One of the most innovative aspects of SABUKO’s approach is the introduction of an economic instrument, the umbrella brand DOVLATI — a word that translates as “wealth” or “prosperity.” Its premise is both simple and transformative. Instead of encouraging ever-larger flocks, which intensify pressure on already fragile soils, DOVLATI focuses on increasing the value of secondary sheep products, particularly traditional Guda cheese.
By modernizing production standards, establishing unified quality benchmarks, strengthening supply chains, and positioning Guda cheese in broader markets, the initiative enables shepherds to generate higher income from fewer animals. In practice, this shift reduces grazing intensity, lowers soil erosion, allows pastures to regenerate, and improves long-term ecosystem health.
At the same time, it secures more stable and dignified livelihoods for farmers. The hypothesis is clear, if high-quality, authentically produced Guda cheese commands a fair price, economic security no longer depends on maximizing herd size. Wealth becomes decoupled from environmental depletion. In this way, each purchase of DOVLATI-branded cheese becomes more than a culinary choice. It becomes participation in a restoration process, one that supports rural families while also contributing to the survival of gazelles, raptors, and steppe ecosystems.
Preserving a Living Cultural Heritage
Transhumant pastoralism in Georgia embodies knowledge of seasonal cycles, mountain routes, animal husbandry, cheese-making, and landscape stewardship accumulated over centuries. It is not only an agricultural method but a cultural system embedded in identity, memory, and collective experience. There is growing recognition that such practices represent intangible cultural heritage of global significance. Preserving them is not a matter of nostalgia, but of sustaining knowledge systems that have historically enabled coexistence between people and nature.
To make this connection visible beyond policy documents and conservation plans, SABUKO has been working on a documentary film dedicated to the lives of shepherds and the landscapes they traverse. The film follows the seasonal migration toward Tusheti, captures the making of Guda cheese in remote pastures, and reveals the climatic hardships, physical endurance, and ecological challenges that define pastoral life today.
More than documentation, the film serves as a bridge between generations. For younger audiences, many of whom are increasingly distant from rural traditions, it offers an intimate glimpse into a way of life that has shaped Georgian culture for centuries. For international viewers, it situates pastoralism within a global conversation about sustainable land use and biodiversity conservation. By telling the shepherds’ story through visual narrative, the documentary underscores a central message: cultural survival and ecological restoration are inseparable.
A Model for the Future
The restoration of the Iori Plateau is not a short-term intervention but a long-term transformation. Desertification must be reversed, floodplains must regenerate, wildlife populations must recover, and pastoral communities must experience tangible benefits from sustainable management.
The message emerging from SABUKO’s work is both pragmatic and hopeful. Economic resilience and environmental protection are not opposing objectives; when carefully aligned, they strengthen one another. By reducing herd sizes while increasing product value, strengthening protected areas while empowering local communities, and recognising pastoralism as both an ecological practice and a cultural heritage, SABUKO is advancing a model in which people and nature do not compete, but coexist.
In the open landscapes of southeastern Georgia, “wealth” is being redefined not as abundance without limits, but as prosperity rooted in balance. And in that balance lies the future of both biodiversity and tradition.
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Wealth in Fewer Sheep: How SABUKO is Reimagining Pastoralism for Nature and People
The article was originally published by CAMCA talking magazine #3
Author: Ana Dumbadze
SABUKO (Society for Nature Conservation) is a Birdlife Partner, Georgia based organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity and promoting sustainable development through conservation initiatives. The organization focuses on safeguarding key ecosystems, supporting species conservation, and working closely with local communities and stakeholders to implement practical conservation actions. SABUKO is also involved in research, environmental education, and other-relevant projects aimed at balancing ecological preservation with responsible land use and long-term environmental resilience.
Across the windswept steppe landscapes of southeastern Georgia, on the Iori Plateau, a centuries-old journey unfolds every year. In spring, shepherds begin their long migration northward, guiding flocks on foot from the dry winter pastures of Kakheti toward the alpine meadows of Tusheti. This movement, known as transhumant pastoralism, is more than a farming practice. It is a cultural rhythm, an ecological system, and a living bridge between people and landscape.
For generations, nomadic shepherding has shaped both Georgia’s mountain culture and its biodiversity. The shepherd and the flock travel hundreds of kilometers annually, producing wool, meat, and one of the country’s most distinctive dairy treasures, Guda cheese, matured in traditional sheepskin bags. The aesthetic and symbolic dimensions of this practice of the slow ascent into the mountains, the resilience of herders navigating difficult terrain, and the communal production of cheese are as remarkable as its economic importance. Yet today, this ancient system stands at a crossroads.
Landscapes Under Pressure
The Iori Plateau, including Chachuna Managed Reserve, Samukhi Valley, Kotsakhura Ridge, and the Vashlovani Protected Areas, is a region of exceptional ecological value. Its floodplain forests, semi-arid steppes, and riverine ecosystems sustain species such as the goitered gazelle, eastern imperial eagle, griffon vulture, Eurasian lynx, striped hyena, and numerous steppe birds. These landscapes are not empty wilderness, but are living systems shaped by centuries of interaction between wildlife and pastoral communities.
For a long time, a relative balance existed between grazing and regeneration. However, during the Soviet period, structural shifts in land governance and the loss of access to winter pastures in neighboring republics concentrated grazing pressure on the remaining lowland areas of Georgia. Overgrazing intensified, soil erosion accelerated, and desertification began to transform the steppe into increasingly fragile terrain.
Environmental degradation here cannot be understood purely as an ecological failure. It is deeply economic. When pastoral livelihoods depend on maintaining large herds to remain profitable, the land inevitably absorbs the pressure. In such contexts, conservation measures alone are insufficient. The roots of environmental decline must be addressed within the economic realities of local communities. This understanding lies at the heart of the work carried out by the Society for Nature Conservation – SABUKO.
Conservation Through Coexistence
Since 2019, with the support of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, SABUKO has been implementing a large-scale landscape restoration project across the Iori Plateau. Rather than separating people from nature, the initiative seeks to rebuild a functioning ecological network where biodiversity conservation and sustainable human livelihoods reinforce one another.
Restoration efforts include the introduction of rotational grazing systems to allow degraded pastures to recover, the protection and rehabilitation of floodplain forests, and the application of active land management techniques designed to improve water access and vegetation resilience. At the same time, scientific monitoring tracks the status of key species and habitats, ensuring that conservation actions are grounded in evidence. SABUKO also works to strengthen environmental legislation and natural resource governance, expand protected areas, and invest in environmental awareness and community engagement.
The creation of the Samukhi Protected Area itself reflects this philosophy: environmental protection and sustainable use must advance together. Humans are not external to ecosystems, but are part of them. Cultural diversity, including pastoral traditions, is intertwined with ecological diversity. Within this framework, nomadic pastoralism is not framed as a problem to eliminate, but as a practice that must evolve toward sustainability.
From Quantity to Value: The DOVLATI Model
One of the most innovative aspects of SABUKO’s approach is the introduction of an economic instrument, the umbrella brand DOVLATI — a word that translates as “wealth” or “prosperity.” Its premise is both simple and transformative. Instead of encouraging ever-larger flocks, which intensify pressure on already fragile soils, DOVLATI focuses on increasing the value of secondary sheep products, particularly traditional Guda cheese.
By modernizing production standards, establishing unified quality benchmarks, strengthening supply chains, and positioning Guda cheese in broader markets, the initiative enables shepherds to generate higher income from fewer animals. In practice, this shift reduces grazing intensity, lowers soil erosion, allows pastures to regenerate, and improves long-term ecosystem health.
At the same time, it secures more stable and dignified livelihoods for farmers. The hypothesis is clear, if high-quality, authentically produced Guda cheese commands a fair price, economic security no longer depends on maximizing herd size. Wealth becomes decoupled from environmental depletion. In this way, each purchase of DOVLATI-branded cheese becomes more than a culinary choice. It becomes participation in a restoration process, one that supports rural families while also contributing to the survival of gazelles, raptors, and steppe ecosystems.
Preserving a Living Cultural Heritage
Transhumant pastoralism in Georgia embodies knowledge of seasonal cycles, mountain routes, animal husbandry, cheese-making, and landscape stewardship accumulated over centuries. It is not only an agricultural method but a cultural system embedded in identity, memory, and collective experience. There is growing recognition that such practices represent intangible cultural heritage of global significance. Preserving them is not a matter of nostalgia, but of sustaining knowledge systems that have historically enabled coexistence between people and nature.
To make this connection visible beyond policy documents and conservation plans, SABUKO has been working on a documentary film dedicated to the lives of shepherds and the landscapes they traverse. The film follows the seasonal migration toward Tusheti, captures the making of Guda cheese in remote pastures, and reveals the climatic hardships, physical endurance, and ecological challenges that define pastoral life today.
More than documentation, the film serves as a bridge between generations. For younger audiences, many of whom are increasingly distant from rural traditions, it offers an intimate glimpse into a way of life that has shaped Georgian culture for centuries. For international viewers, it situates pastoralism within a global conversation about sustainable land use and biodiversity conservation. By telling the shepherds’ story through visual narrative, the documentary underscores a central message: cultural survival and ecological restoration are inseparable.
A Model for the Future
The restoration of the Iori Plateau is not a short-term intervention but a long-term transformation. Desertification must be reversed, floodplains must regenerate, wildlife populations must recover, and pastoral communities must experience tangible benefits from sustainable management.
The message emerging from SABUKO’s work is both pragmatic and hopeful. Economic resilience and environmental protection are not opposing objectives; when carefully aligned, they strengthen one another. By reducing herd sizes while increasing product value, strengthening protected areas while empowering local communities, and recognising pastoralism as both an ecological practice and a cultural heritage, SABUKO is advancing a model in which people and nature do not compete, but coexist.
In the open landscapes of southeastern Georgia, “wealth” is being redefined not as abundance without limits, but as prosperity rooted in balance. And in that balance lies the future of both biodiversity and tradition.
