THE BOUNDARY DOES NOT TWIST

A Historical and Sociological Overview of the Community Forestry in Albania

Gazmend ZENELI, Jonida TARAJ, Haki KOLA

INTRODUCTION
Liberty and forest laws are incompatible
remarked an English country vicar, speaking on behalf of villagers shut out of woodland reserved for the exclusive use of the king, in 1720 (Thompson, 1720). Indeed, the history of state forestry has been a history of social conflict. In continental Europe, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were peppered with social protest movements against the state management of forests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magna_Carta.jpg

These protests inspired, among other things, Karl Marxs first political writings (Marx, 1842) and a memorable novel by Honore de Balzac capturing peasant hostility to forest officials (de Balzac, 1900).

INTRODUCTION
The social-political system also had a particularly Albania aspect, namely the tribal system as recorded in the Kanuni i Lek Dukagjinit.
This system probably evolved as a dynamic, social response to the pressures of life in a frontier zone , and as a response by the Albanian population to the pressures of assimilation.
According to the Kanuni i Lek Dukagjinit, large households (shpia), organized into neighborhoods (mehalla), share patrilineal descent from a common apical ancestor thereby forming exogamous segmented clans (fisi).

Several neighborhoods and fisi together compose a single village. Political power is vested in the person of the family patriarch (zot i shpise). Family
heads are appointed or elected to a village council (kuvend) that makes decisions of importance to the whole community. A single council member is elected headman or kryeplak. Several villages and fisi might be politically joined in a bajrak (a banner) led by a bajraktar (a banner chief ).

INTRODUCTION
ALBANIA has been characterized by extremes over the last century, and property rights in particular have undergone extreme changes
Although forests were officially mostly state-owned, in practice their use was regulated by the customary norms
The rights were based on the recognition of specific areas as the property of a particular group of brothers (vllazni), beyond that of a particular clan (fis). Beyond a certain distance the forest was the common property (kujrit)

of a village; beyond this of the bajrak (district).

In 1945, all forest became the property of the state. This includes every form of copse, from the dwarf oaks and pine woods that border villages, to the dense forests on the high slopes of the mountain ranges. The disintegration of the state during the collapse of the communist regime was dramatic and since 1991, Albania has pursued a process of forestry reform.

INTRODUCTION
This study is based on an evaluative project, that piloted a participatory approach to demarcating and mapping user rights and developing management plans within the villages that make up a commune
This presentation aims on: providing a historical overview of the relationship between man and forest in Albania, focusing mainly in the sociological aspects of this relationship,

evaluating changes in the attitudes of local communities in different regions in Albania in regards to community (communal) forest land, and,
evaluating where the field of community forestry is today in Albania.

METHODOLOGY
Regions were chosen to be representative of the whole country. Consideration of several factors such as: the geographical location, total area and area covered by forest, number of communes etc. historical traditions especially in forest and pasture ownership and management, historical bias. The district of Korca was chosen as the one displaying the characteristics of the whole southern region and due to the distinct differences from other parts of the country in forest and pasture The topography in this district is various; plain fields, hills and mountain.

METHODOLOGY
Puka represents more or less the traditions of Lezha, Shkodra, and Kukesi. Located in Albanian Alps, the commune of Blerimi presents the typical northern village with scattered houses that are each other and accessible only by rugged footpaths. The area is commonly cited both in ethnographic literature and by Albanian people today as having maintained more tribal customs than other districts due to mountains locations and relative isolation from outside influence. Dibr, located in the mountainous northeast of Albania, is one of most povertystricken regions of the country. In term of customs, family organization and traditionaluse and management of forest, Dibra was chosen as an area dominated by the Kanun of Scanderbeg Elbasani was chosen to represent mountain region of central Albania in both sides of Shkumbini River. The river has serves more or less as the boundary between Gheg andToske usually apart from

COMMUNITY FORESTRY
Community forestry is a village-level forestry activity, decided on collectively and implemented on communal land, where local populations participate in the planning, establishing, managing and harvesting of forest crops, and so receive a major proportion of the socio-economic and ecological benefits from the forest (Martel and Whyte, 1992). "Community forestry, social forestry and rural development forestry

are more or less equivalent and reflect Abraham Lincoln's view of democracy government of the people, by the people, for the people (Burley, 2007) .
Transfer of state-owned lands to local governments has included forest and pastures. The process of transfer goes through several stages. The size and boundary lines of the areas are preliminary assigned to each commune and subordinate village

COMMUNITY FORESTRY
Village decides whether or not to divide the communal forests and pastures.

It can happen that neighborhoods, clans, or separate families may request to use two or more plots.

If the village decides to divide them, then the village commission or a special group selected by the village collects the requests or traditional claims of

neighborhoods, clans, group families or separate families about the forests

and pastures they have used in the past.

RESULTS
In the region of Puka:
In both villages, where an area of 12.7 ha pasture was transferred (Dardhe and Trun) it was decided that these areas should be used collectively.

While six out of the seven villages of the commune

decided to divide the high forest area on individual users, the villager of Trun decided to have everything in communal use.

When was more than one the

user of the parcel, a sketch was drawn, divided where by the lines parcel and is in

each polygon there is a number,

indicating the user

RESULTS
In the region of Dibra:
Conflicts and misunderstandings during the village boundaries demarcations. Most of these conflicts came from the fact that four villages are

daughters of Bazi and Karica created during the

communist era. two forms of use are common in all the villages: collective use by the whole village and private use

by single families.
Shrubs are designated to be in collective use in all the villages, while for high forest and coppices the mode of use differs among the villages. In Baz and Karice, there is a tendency of collective use, while newly created villages tend more towards the use by individual families.

RESULTS
In the region of Elbasan:
a different mode of forest and pasture use.

all the villages decided that the pasture area of ca. 4000 ha should be used collectively.

the same stands true as far as the forest are concerned. In the majority of the villages, it was decided that all the forest transferred should be used collectively and not divided to individuals

RESULTS
In the region of Korca:
Prior to the collectivization, the forests have been treated as a common property administered by the Village Council.

In 2002, forests and pastures are returned to the

commune and village use. Following the methodology, demarcation of village boundaries were carried out by the working groups. Two forms of use are common in all the villages; collective use by the whole village and private use by single households. Shrubs are designated to be

in collective use in all the villages, while for high

forest and coppices the mode of use differs among the villages.

DISCUSSION
In the communities surveyed, customary ownership is usually regulated at the family level. The individuals of a family know their limited and traditional rights to land and how it is to be used. The sub-division of the communal forests and pastures that have been transferred from state control reflects this reality. The majority of plots are allocated on a per family basis; a lesser area is allocated as common or village forest or as forest being attributed to an individual. The allocation is usually made according to the old boundaries of the properties as they were before 1945. Everywhere, villagers have a strong feeling about their ownership on the forest, that they consider as their property, based very often on ancestral use or on even actual use. This attitude is relatively independent of the actual status of the forest and refers to the land and to the products themselves and not to the use.

DISCUSSION
According to the social cohesion, the families (as the smaller unit) are represented by one of their members, who has the authority to resolve the conflicts linked with the allocation of natural resources. Usually, where this social cohesion is strong , the families have maintained the traditional knowledge and process to allocate their resources within the village, even within the family.

When this cohesion is not so strong, the number of conflicts is higher and the
process of resolving them takes longer. Villagers are trying to follow the same approach as the one based on the tradition but negotiating the users rights on base of their actual or past use of the resource.

There are rules governing behavior such that felled wood or bundles of firewood
marked by a stone (or cross-shaped sign the Catholic region), can be left without risk of theft. It would be sinful (mkat) to touch this material as it is obviously the fruit of someone elses labor.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE

The discourse on forestry has to move towards a more accommodationist perspective. Foresters and peasant need to talk to, rather than talk past, each other.
A willingness to listen to and at least partially incorporate the other point of view should replace the rigid and uncompromising attitude of the past. Within the forestry profession itself, skeptics doubt the contemporary relevance of the custodial and policing approaches previously followed. It is time that governments to more seriously and sympathetically consider the rights of forest-dependent communities The common good is placed before private damage. E mira e prbashkt i paravehet damit t veant

THANK YOU