Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the presentation of the 10-year Moratorium on forests:

I will start this speech by quoting a great poet and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau who said: “What is the purpose of having a beautiful house if it is built on a worthless planet?”

Actually, if we look at the panorama of Albania’s intensive but totally chaotic and unsustainable development in the last 25 years, it is clear that this development has occurred at the expenses of the next generations. If Albania is facing today a double challenge, on the one hand the global challenge of climate change, that of course affects us as well, and on the other hand the Albanian challenge of the erosion caused by people – this is of course a first and direct consequence of that intensive and chaotic development coming from constructions made without any criteria, using as raw material the future, and borrowing what could never be borrowed, what belongs to the next generations, with the purpose of building just for today.

Just as any living organism, the earth itself is a living organism in all its constituents, who are intertwined with each-other in such an intrinsic way that any interference in any of its limbs causes traumas, bleeding and fatal damages to the whole of the earth organism.

We have gotten to the stage where we need to react in the most determined and radical possible way, because today we can see and feel on a daily basis what until two decades ago was shown only by the analysis and the diagnosis of a degradation started even before the 90s, but which took frightening proportions after the 90s.

Gandhi said: “The Earth provides enough for every man’s needs but not for every man’s greed”. What we are experiencing today in terms of flooding is actually the unaffordable bill of the greed of many to take what they are not entitled to, who want to build where they are not allowed to and to live with what they are and could not be entitled to. And, no doubt, it is also due to the frightening blindness or ignorance of those whose duty has been for years to defend and manage this sector so vital and so delicate.

Deforestation, destruction of rivers, riverbeds, the barbaric exploitation for timber, for construction materials, and the destruction of the protection infrastructure, dams, levees, canals, all this has brought us year after year on a precipice, in order to avoid which we took measures two years ago.

But today, two years later, we are at a stage where we have to go a step further, and must take with courage and determination the step for the 10-year Moratorium for the absolute prohibition of the use of forests for profit, for industrial purposes, for commercial purposes, for purposes that go beyond the vital and immediate needs of residents of different areas, who use the wood to stay warm during the winter. The latter is the only acceptable part of the process, and we must rein in at any cost any other aspect in terms of forest exploitation.

Of course, forests have been destroyed not only by what was allowed. Forests have been destroyed also due to intense criminal activity performed illegally and in cooperation with the structures that were supposed to protect forests in all these years.

The Minister rightly briefed us on the efforts made, and citizens, the media, the controls performed by the ministry in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior in order to expose inspectors or even state employees, who have been part of this criminal and illegal activity, have been part of these efforts as well. Without the slightest doubt, even though it is far from being a story that is over, the story of the efforts made in in these two years by our government, namely the Ministry of Environment and the Minister, is obviously an important premise to be a success story.

I want to thank and encourage wholeheartedly and strongly the residents, communities and the media for reporting any case of abuse with this extraordinary and invaluable asset of ours that has been so much outraged in all these years. We have responded and will continue to respond with determination and zero to those who are paid with the taxes of the people to protect forests, and who instead of protecting them they exploit them in a criminal and illegal way.

We have made an intervention in the legislation, but today we are determined to make two major interventions, and it is about time to make them: the 10-year Moratorium and the Package for the Punishment of the Environmental Crime.

For the sake of the truth, the moratorium is not a request that was submitted today by the Minister of Environment and by me personally, in order to fully support this idea, but it is a request that today cannot be rejected anymore by the Albanian legislators.

It is in Parliament. We are looking forward for the new session to start in order to approve the Moratorium, about which we have discussed at long with stakeholders who are affected by these drastic measures, but also with MPs who, for different reasons, without prejudicing them but without sympathizing with them either, have opposed the Moratorium.

What we eventually want is the Moratorium approved by Parliament. I am convinced that with the opening of the session, the Albanian Parliament will approve the moratorium, who categorically prohibits any production, any industrial, commercial, and economic activity in state forests or private forests for 10 years. In addition, it guarantees the use of forests according to very well-defined criteria, and through a very rigorous control to be performed by the Ministry of Environment, the municipalities that benefit from the decentralization reform, not only by taking great responsibility but also the competence for the use of forests only for household purposes, thus harmonizing the forests standards for this purpose to the needs of citizens.

The Ministry of Environment – I want to thank the team of boys and girls of this ministry who have worked to prepare the Moratorium – has correctly calculated these needs, just as it has correctly determined the way to meet these needs without prejudice to the mission of this moratorium.

Just imagine this – everybody should imagine this – in the years 1945-1990, a period during which due to the regime of that time forests were as protected as ever, the exploitation of forests for the needs of a determined system and politics was 2-3 time higher than the natural annual growth of the forests.

So, in fact, if we refer to today’s standards of the European Union and to the technical and professional criteria for the exploitations of forests, the period going from 1945 to 1990 can be considered out of any standard, meeting none of the criteria. Imagine now what has happened from 1990 onwards, if we consider that only during the period of the previous government, namely from 2007 to 2013, 216.074 hectares of forest have been cut and burned nationwide. It is 17% of the total forest fund of the Republic of Albania.

It only take the courage of those who have this colossal responsibility in front of the next generations in relation to this asset, to speak and call to account about the consequences that are very obvious and that were totally expected, considering what has happened because of licences given without any criteria, because of the criminal and illegal activity spread like a cancer throughout the forestry area of the country, because of more than 400 licences for the construction without any criteria of hydropower plants, that have caused the destruction of thousands of hectares across the country, so that today we no longer have even the slightest hesitation to put this 10-year moratorium.

In addition, I would like to bring to your attention another fact. We had the same response, smaller than this one because the stakeholders were fewer, but as aggressive as this one, when we talked about the Moratorium on Hunting. Today, in such a short time, the Moratorium on Hunting is a success story that speaks for itself. Suffice it to look today at the National Park of Divjake, and compare it to what it used to be, in order to understand the great importance of that measure proposed by the government and approved by the Assembly.

The deforestation made also every species having wings and feet leave their habitat. Now they are returning and are trying to revive here in Albania. The same will happen with the 10-year Moratorium on forests.

Imagine that, while 216.074 hectares of forests were destroyed and burned in the period from 2007 to 2013, the total reforested area in the years from 1990 to 2013 was 2.674 hectares. With these rates of deforestation and reforestation, it is not difficult to imagine Albania after 15 years, a totally nude country of 28 thousand square shaved kilometres, and without doubt, flooded once and for all.

This would have happened very likely, hadn’t an important turning point been taken in 2013, which is far from being a thorough turning point, and this because only in 2014-2015 the positive change in this aspect is the following: 2.5 million forest seedlings planted and reforested area equivalent to 80% of the forest area from 1990 to 2013. So, if from 1990 to 2013 there were 2.670 hectares, 2 thousand hectares were reforested in just two years. But, certainly, this is far from being a figure that satisfies us and is enough for us. Not we, but no government with any kind of budget available – I mean foreign governments – to recover this process and this catastrophic situation, could have the impact needed for the next generation without cooperation with nature, namely, without a moratorium that would allow nature take its course, that would give the organism of nature the space and opportunity of spontaneous regeneration, because the ratio of planting one tree and burning down a thousand is unsustainable.

We will set this year the thermal cameras, and we have worked on this project for two years. In fact the work is done, the ministry has worked with a very significant and very encouraging Project to set the thermal cameras, very special cameras at ever key point where the criminal activity of forest exploitation is carried out. Simultaneously, these cameras will identify not only the movement, but also the sources of fire.

The Package for the Punishment of Environmental Crime, which will be taken to Parliament in the coming weeks and is being finalized by the government, with an aim at strengthening the measures in the Criminal Code, meets the need to have a complex approach.

Therefore, Moratorium, increased punitive power of the law and increased forestry investments, which means increase investments in technology, increased investments in human resources, and tangible investment growth to continue planting forest seedlings, a process that started when we took office.

I know that there are many things to be done, and people have been waiting for so many years, that anytime they are faced with the scars of the past, they are always impatient and nervous, as if the vote were enough to change government, and the new government should change things in an heartbeat. But the truth is a little simpler and a little more complicated at the same time. You can change, as our experience shows, even a regime in a few days, but you cannot change in a short time the whole edifice of the organization of a state.

What happened to forests is another reason that shows that we had anything but a state. What we’re doing is building a serious state that is able to meet the needs of citizens, and also to guarantee the responsibility of every government at any time face to the next generation and to the future.

The forest moratorium is part of measures to cope with consequences of erosion and cope with the Albanian bill of flooding, which is added to the climate change bill. If floods are a phenomenon that is affecting increasingly every year everybody, even the most developed countries, – just a few days ago they were the main topic of discussions in the UK parliament, something that was unimaginable until 10 years ago, – in those countries the bill comes due to climate change, not because of self-destruction going on for over two decades in every natural structure and public infrastructure built to protect against floods. We have both bills coming along.

We are very aware and very determined to confront the Albanian bill with some complex measures. The moratorium, the establishment of stricter control on water resources and their use, which is part of the water reform which we will present in the coming days, and significant investment in every protective infrastructure, embankments, irrigation canals, etc. On the one hand, through the already structured reform of drainage boards that will be a central and centralized structure under the direction of the Minister of Agriculture, and will implement the national policies in this respect, and on the other hand through the largest funding ever given in these 20 years for secondary and tertiary canals, that will be allocated to municipalities along with the logistical support to ensure that this year we do a thorough cleaning out of the existing canals.

We have cleaned out 649 kilometres of canals in 2 years. Of course, it is not enough. But if those canals had been left as we found them, intact for over 20 years, the floods we have seen would have been 10 times larger. And just because it is not enough, the scale this year will be much higher and the impact will be much stronger. We have used a ridiculous fleet to make this cleaning, because no investment has been made for the fleet of excavators in over 20 years.

We were having with the Minister of Agriculture a look at the inventory of the current fleet. In a country like Albania, with all these issues and all these changes from the past in relation to erosion, Soviet and Chinese excavators have been used in over 20 years, along with some other means.

Today the fleet for secondary canals is going to local governments, and its results that 65% of the fleet is merely inert material for museums, it is for auction of old stuff, but not fit for work.

Therefore, this year investment for the fleet will be massive. Of course the work will continue intensively, as we are very aware of the impatience, and we are more impatient than the people who are impatient to see change.

To conclude, I thank once again, not for formality, but for the work performed for two years by the team of the Ministry of Environment in the environmental a sector that has been considered in all these years the backyard of the house, where usually people gather old stuff, for they have been confronted not only with serious problems but also with a backward mentality. I am convinced that the work has begun to yield results, but these will be much more concrete in the coming period, due to the moratorium.

I want to thank all of you here who are part of this important story of change. We want even more in this regard. We have the encouraging signs to make success, but we will have success if, just as we did with energy, just as we did with illegal constructions, just as we did with other sectors, the violation of the law is the exception, not the rule. Cutting a tree should be the exception, not the rule. Damage to the forest should be the exception, not the rule. Burning forests should be the exception, not the rule, then we will be much more relaxed when we say the word success.

I wish you to succeed with your work as soon as possible, so that we can be relaxed and very confident when we say the word success, and I wish that outrage of forest will be as much of a taboo as it is today violating power lines, or public or private property to make illegal constructions, although there are still such cases, but they are exceptions, not the rule.

Many thanks!

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The 10-year moratorium on the use of timber for commercial purposes will mark a historic milestone, in addition to enabling forests to regenerate.

Official data relative to the period from 2007 to 2013 have shown an environmental disaster in the forestry sector. About 17% of the forest fund has been cut and burned intentionally. But in the years 2007 – 2013, the previous government gave permission for the construction of 435 HPPs. These HPPs have deforested significant areas, while no agreement with the Ministry of Environment has been entered for their rehabilitation. According to the report published by the National Environment Agency for 2002-2012 to the land coverage nationwide, situation in Albania is on the verge of being alarming.

Over 800 million ALL of the new currency were invested in just 2 years of governance for reforestation, the rehabilitation of degraded areas and the protection of forests from biological pests. For the first time, the Government has forced the entities operating on the forest fund (HPPs, mines, stone careers etc.) to implement the law on rehabilitation of all surfaces that are exploited.

The entry into force of the moratorium will prevent new areas from being exploited for commercial use for a period of 10 years, in addition to terminating any existing contract.