Albanian forest role to the climate change mitigation and national economy

NEHAT  ÇOLLAKU¹*,  ELVIN  TOROMANI¹,  DRITAN  AJDINAJ¹,  ERION  ISTREFI²

¹  Faculty of Forest Sciences, Agricultural University of Tirana, Albania.

²  Ministry of Tourism and Environment (Project of Environment Services), Tirana, Albania

*Corresponding author e-mail: nehatcollaku@ubt.edu.al

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Abstract

Albania has ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2005 and recently has prepared the third National Communication to Mitigate the Greenhouse Gases (GHG). The main contributors in terms of GHG emissions (CO2 eqv.) according to this report were; (i) Energy sector (47.9%), (ii) Agriculture (14.26%), (iii) Industry (11.37%),(iv) Land Use Change and Forestry (20.64%) and (v) Waste (6.64%). Forestry sector has e great potential to GHG emissions by changes in management practices and wood use. The total estimated wood fuel consumption is 2.658.268 m3 equivalent with 651.4 ktoe or 7,577000 MWh energy (FAO, 2016). This amount of energy might be provided also from other sources like electric energy, natural gas etc and the economic value is estimated around 387 million euro (EUR) with a 3.45 % contribution in total GDP of Albania. Woodfuel use for energy purposes, significantly contribute to offsetting GHG emissions, therefore good practices in forest resource management and wood use must be implemented. To mobilize more wood from the forest sources at national level, efficient and effective measures need to be developed and applied. The objective of this study is to highlight the efficient and effective measures developed in Albania, to increase the role of forestry sector to meet energy demand and mitigate GHG.

Keywords: climate change mitigation, wood fuel consumption, contribution, national economy.