Albania faces many of the same environmental issues with which other countries in Eastern Europe are being confronted. Both air and water pollution is serious issues as a result of the lack of facilities and controls. Most of the environmental damage that occurred in rural areas during the socialist period has not been repaired. Large-scale cultivation destroyed field roads, water courses, vegetation belts and other landscape features suitable for individual farming. Environmental degradation has sometimes increased during the transition period, for example through deforestation of valuable species, inappropriate tillage of soils and a failure to maintain a balance of nutrients in the topsoil. The evidence, therefore, indicates that land privatization may not have been beneficial to the protection of environmental amenities of a common-pool or public good nature. As a way of conclusion, rural areas in Albania have experienced radical changes in land policy, land tenure, and land use.

land tenure; land cover; soil erosion; pasture; land reform; land ownership

Presentation: oral