Caucasus & West Asia Nature Nonprofits

The Caucasus is the mountain wall between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and it is one of the most biodiverse temperate regions on the planet, a crossroads where European, Asian, and Middle Eastern species meet and where the mountains are high enough and old enough to have sheltered life through repeated ice ages. Georgia alone holds temperate rainforest, alpine meadow, and semi-desert within a few hours’ drive.

This is also the birthplace of wine, of wheat cultivation, and of a great deal of agricultural biodiversity: the wild relatives of many of the crops the world depends on grow in these hills, which makes the region a genetic reservoir of quiet global importance. Leopards, bears, and wolves persist in the high country.

The organizations here protect the Colchic forests and wetlands along the Black Sea, defend rivers targeted for hydropower, and work in a politically complicated region where conservation must operate across borders that are, in places, actively contested.