Impact of Macroeconomic Changes and Property Rights on Forest Degradation, Land Use and Environmental Situation in Albania - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 204

Keywords Land-cover change · Land-use change · Post-socialist

reforms · Migration Albania

17.1 Historical Land Tenure in Albania

There are two outstanding characteristics of the development of land relations since
1991 in Albania. The first is the creation of a nation of smallholders-owners of
small farms held in freehold tenure brought about by Law 7501. Whatever the
deficiencies of the content and implementation of this law, the fundamental socio-
economic revolution brought about by this law should not be underestimated. The
second characteristic and one that is directly related to the first is the exuberant
urban development and rapid growth of land market that has taken place. Prior
to the Second World War, the distribution of land in Albania was unequal. The
most productive agricultural areas were owned by a few families. Under socialism,
Albania was the only country in CEE that effectively nationalized all land, based on
its 1976 Constitution (Agolli, 2000 ; Civici, 1994 ; Cungu and Swinnen, 1999 ). After
the demise of socialism, Albania implemented a comprehensive land redistribution
program that established private property on virtually all cropland under use during
the socialist period. Land redistribution was a politically feasible strategy; restitu-
tion to former owners would have resulted in less than 5% of the population owning
the most productive land. The Albanian land reform of 1991, the Land Law 7501,
was intended to redistribute all collectivized land to former members of the coop-
eratives on an equal per capita basis. Other rural residents who were not members
of the cooperatives were also awarded land but in smaller quantities (Law 7501,
Art. 6). Land to be redistributed was stratified by variations in distance to the farm-
stead, soil fertility and irrigation capacity. Village-level land distribution councils
were formed to allocate plots, often in distant locations within the village territory,
to each farm family proportional to their household size, including the elderly and
small children. While this urban development has not been universal throughout
the country - there has been more in Tirana and the south of the country than in
the north - it is a striking testimony to the effect of private ownership of land, the
existence of a market for land and access to the necessary financial resources to
bring about urban development (Bloch, 1998 ; Cungu and Swinnen, 1999 ). These
two interrelated characteristics - widespread private ownership of land, rapid devel-
opment and its corollary, development of a land market, must be seen in the context
of a major social change in the country - the rapid movement of population to urban
areas and overseas to find work.

17.1.1 Privatization of Agricultural Land

The land privatization process began in 1991 with the approval of Law 7501 On
Land . The law divided agricultural land among the inhabitants of the cooperatives
and workers in the state-owned farms according to the quality and productivity