The Caucasus Mountains harbor high concentrations of endemic species and provide an abundance of ecosystem services yet are significantly understudied compared to other ecosystems in Eurasia. In the country of Georgia, at the heart of the Caucasus region, forest degradation has been the largest land change process over the last thirty years. The prevailing narrative is that legal and illegal cutting of trees for fuelwood is primarily responsible for this process. Yet, since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the country has undergone rapid socioeconomic and institutional changes which have not been explored as drivers of forest change. We combine newly available land-cover change estimates, Georgian statistical data, and historical institutional change data to examine socioeconomic drivers of forest degradation. Our analysis controls for concurrent changes in climate that would affect degradation and examines variation at the regional (state) level from 2011 to 2019, as well as at the national level from 1987 to 2019. We find that higher winter temperature and drought are associated with higher degradation at the regional scale, while major institutional changes and drought are associated with higher forest degradation at the national level. Access to natural gas, the major energy alternative to fuelwood, had no significant association with degradation. Our results challenge the narrative that poverty and a lack of alternative energy infrastructure drive forest degradation and suggest that government policies banning household fuelwood cutting, including the new Forest Code of 2020, may not reduce forest degradation. Given these results, improved data on wood harvesting and more research on the commercial drivers of degradation and their links to economic and political reforms is needed to better inform forest policy in the region, especially given ongoing risks from climate change.

高加索山脉拥有高度集中的特有物种，并提供丰富的生态系统服务，但与欧亚大陆其他生态系统相比，其研究却严重不足。在位于高加索地区中心的格鲁吉亚国家，森林退化是过去三十年来最大的土地变化过程。普遍的说法是，合法和非法砍伐树木作为薪材是造成这一过程的主要原因。然而，自 1991 年脱离苏联独立以来，该国经历了快速的社会经济和体制变革，但尚未将其视为森林变化的驱动因素。我们结合新获得的土地覆盖变化估计、格鲁吉亚统计数据和历史制度变迁数据来研究森林退化的社会经济驱动因素。我们的分析控制了会影响退化的气候变化，并检查了 2011 年至 2019 年区域（州）层面以及 1987 年至 2019 年国家层面的变化。我们发现，冬季气温升高和干旱与区域一级森林退化加剧，而重大体制变化和干旱则与国家一级森林退化加剧有关。天然气是薪材的主要替代能源，其获取与退化没有显着关联。我们的研究结果挑战了贫困和缺乏替代能源基础设施导致森林退化的说法，并表明禁止家庭薪柴砍伐的政府政策（包括 2020 年新《森林法》）可能不会减少森林退化。鉴于这些结果，需要改进木材采伐数据，并对退化的商业驱动因素及其与经济和政治改革的联系进行更多研究，以便更好地为该地区的森林政策提供信息，特别是考虑到气候变化带来的持续风险。