Albania has perhaps moved further than any other country in the region to introduce sweeping land reform as a necessary precursor to the development of land markets. As a result of this reform, the rural landscape has been dramatically transformed since 1990 with all collective farms disbanded, and approximately 98 percent of agricultural land distributed to smallholders. This has transformed crop farming from a collectivized, command structure to a fully private sector with smallholder families farming small and fragmented plots for their own consumption and for the market. Pasture land and forests have mostly not been part of the privatization process. Only recently has state ownership been transferred to communities and private persons. The legislation currently in place provides an adequate legal and regulatory framework to support a functioning land market. This paper tries to identify the relationship between land reforms, land tenure in the dynamics of land-use and land-cover change in Albania in the framework of the environmental consequences and policy response. The paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between land tenure, land use and land reform in the environmental consequences in Albania during the post socialist period.

land cover; land use; environmental impact; land reform

Presentation: oral