Albanian Government Council of Ministers

More than 1000 fruit tree saplings were planted in the village of Farke today as part of Albania’s participation in the international campaign entitled “Breath for the Future”. Launched by the Turkish government under the auspices of the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “Breath for the Future” is a mass campaign aimed at contributing to the agriculture while establishing a greener planet for future generations. 

Prime Minister Edi Rama visited the Farka lake area at the invitation of the Ambassador of Turkey in Tirana, Mr, Murat Ahmet Yörük, along with the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Rural Bledi Çuçi, as well as the Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj, to launch the planting of some 1000 saplings in a number of various locations simultaneously.

“It is time to make peace with nature,” Mayor Veliaj said in his remarks as he hailed the campaign aimed at contributing to the environment and restoring the relational balance between humans and the nature where they live.  “It is part of an initiative launched in Turkey by President Erdoğan, a festival entitled ‘Breath for the Future’. I believe that one of the things that made us very sensitive during experience with COVID is the fact of a peace we need to forge with nature. We come from a bitter experience in the ‘90s when we declared war on nature and when we cut every tree down, polluted rivers, starting with Tirana’s Lana river or the longest and biggest rivers in Albania, where we built illegally without respecting any criteria. And I believe today, also because of the pandemic, we have now ushered in a stage, where we are reflecting and seeking to make peace with the nature. The fact that we are returning a dowry to Tirana today, which, in collaboration with the local communities and the local government units, by making best use of the assets and natural resources, like these rivers and lakes, will be a dowry to the future generations. Planting a sapling today may not sound quite significant, but it will provide best for entire communities in the coming years,” Veliaj said.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Bledi Çuçi noted that such events become more meaningful amid the pandemic that has gripped entire world. “Together with many countries around the world, we demonstrate today our commitment to a greener region and planet. Today more than ever before we understand how fragile the nature’s balance is and the today’s event takes a particular significance especially in the context of the pandemic, where it seems that the human being remains fragile in this habitat of the world. This is a very good sign for the future generations,” he said. 

The project is being implemented in 30 countries all over the world and many countries will join it soon, Turkish Ambassador to Albania, Murat Ahmet Yörük said.

Welcoming this important initiative aimed at protecting and renewing the environment, Prime Minister Rama confirmed that Albanian government will join such programmes through implementation of ongoing concrete projects to build a greener Albania, not only to regenerate, but also further expand it.

“I would like to express gratitude for this initiative. To share it with the public, this is the second edition of an international festival launched under the auspices of President Erdoğan. More than 11 million trees were planted simultaneously in many countries around the world during the campaign’s first edition that has entered the Guinness Book of World Record. Today we are in Tirana at the same time with a considerable number of other countries to plant 1000 trees here in Farka, in a process where Tirana has been on the forefront despite a short suspension between two stages during the time I used t serve as Tirana Mayor and since Erion has taken over as Mayor and we will press ahead with this process.

In the meantime, I am very proud to see today the materialization of the tangible outcomes of a the Moratorium imposed several years ago to ban forest logging and wood cutting, except for needs of the local population in certain areas. Hunting is also prohibited under the Moratorium. The country’s lungs are consistently regenerating, as it is also the case with the country’s fauna, which can be demonstrated by the Divjakë-Karavasta National Park National, now already an international destination for the species-watching admirers.

As we speak, a huge site has been launched in Porto Romano, an urban waste dumpsite has for decades become a gangrenous environmental emergency, a source of pollution with irreparable damage to land and to the health of population due to the disposal and huge mountains of untreated waste, which will now be transformed into a great ecological park and a public recreational space and which will open to the public next spring. The new ecological park will be an embodiment of our ambition for the Albania of future generations, for a renewed and expanded greener Albania. Next month, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Albania and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Turkey will discuss a joint plan focusing on the greenery and the forests, for which Turkey represents one of the most significant examples in the world today and has an extraordinary expertise that will generously offer to us as well. “Once again, thank you very much for this initiative and for the presence of the ambassador himself, a good friend of Albania, of the Albanians, just like President Erdoğan definitely is.”

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