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our country and even for the future, is one of the most profitable branches of the
national economy. This development, in order to keep this pace in conformity with
people needs for animal products, requires a far more organized, studied work for
the maintenance of the livestock production. According to the cadastral data, natural
pasture area is estimated to be 415,911 ha or 14% of the whole territory, extended
in 36 districts.
17.4 Conclusions
Although Albania is faced with many political, economic and social problems,
important steps have been taken. The commitment of Albanians to abandon five
decades of state ownership and control and the steady progress made in complet-
ing substantive and procedural privatization laws are laudable. In this chapter we
analyzed the impacts of heterogeneous land-use incentives upon land cover which
allows us to examine land-cover transitions following the large-scale policy shifts in
the wake of transition along with the subsequent realignment of land-use incentives
due to land reform. The agricultural abandonment in Albania is strongly mediated
by both the biogeophysical environment and transportation infrastructure. District-
level effects provide some evidence that abandonment is more likely in relatively
remote areas, or when other economic opportunities, such as tourism press them-
selves forward. Forest-cover loss was highly sensitive to the time period. Forest
clearing tended to shift from subsistence orientation in the first years after the col-
lapse of socialism to more commercial extraction in later stages. The abandonment
of large areas of cropland partly reflects the adjustment of the rural sector to the
evolving market conditions and leads to a concentration of cultivation on more
productive areas. In Albania further abandonment of cropland may continue well
into the future given the fact that the younger generations will continue to secure
their livelihood depending more and more on internal and international migration.
This will become more worrisome with the elderly farmers declining faster and
faster. Future abandonment in Albania may be aggravated by the projected reduc-
tions in crop productivity caused by high temperatures and drought in a region
already vulnerable to climate variability. The impact of the successional vegeta-
tion on biodiversity, soil conditions or the carbon sequestration potential depends
on the prevailing natural conditions and will therefore vary across regions. Rural
landscapes will continue to evolve and change. Land reforms, particularly the estab-
lishment of private property rights, are based on the logic that efficiency gains in
agricultural production will occur as a result. Nevertheless, impediments to a fully
functioning land market remain. Issues such as restitution and compensation, ille-
gal occupation of land and other land disputes continue to cloud legal title. Rural
conditions throughout the region in Albania have deteriorated during the transition
period. There is growing inequality between rural and urban areas, with most of the
poor now living in rural areas. These areas are characterized by declining popula-
tions which are mainly represented by women and the elderly. Rural infrastructure
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