Project name: Development of integrated forests and pastures management plans for 5 municipalities in Albania: Has, Maliq, Berat, Malesi e Madhe, and Korce
Client: Ministry of Tourism and Environment of Albania
Project partners: ABKONS shpk Ltd., Oikon Ltd. and Pro silva Ltd.
Period: 9/2019 – 5/2021
Location: Albania
The objectives of the project were to:
- Prepare multipurpose Forest and Pasture Management Plans (FPMP) balancing economic, social and ecological aspects. The plans would adhere to the FPMP Guidelines 2018 and reflect the constraints and opportunities of the forests and pasture resource in each area in a way that maximizes the benefits to municipal and local stakeholders according to their needs.
- Prepare Forest and Pasture Management Plans (FPMP) for all registered municipality forests and pastures within 5 municipalities: Has, Maliq, Berat, Malesi e Madhe, and Korce.
- Raise the capacity of local and municipal staff to conduct FPMP planning and to conduct quality control tasks related to it.
Forest and pastures management plans were prepared for 166,172 ha in total. The area is divided into 37 management units and 11,639 subparcels (homogeneous polygons). All FPMPs were checked by the Albanian Forest Institute and Ministry of Environment and Tourism and approved by Municipal councils.
The work on the project includes:
- Preparatory work – collection of old data and documents related to FPMPs, conversion of collected data into digital forms, definition of FPMU areas, design of forest partitioning on parcels (compartments) and subparcels (stands), establishment of GIS database for all management units, preparation of preliminary and working maps, design of samples for forest inventory, preparation of tablets for field work and set up the application for data input on the field, training of field teams, equipment preparation.
- Field work – preliminary FPMU survey, measurement of sample plots in forests, shrubs and pastures, floristic and vegetation investigation and mapping, roads and infrastructure survey, data input in database and geodatabase, quality control measurements.
- Internal database – establishment of internal database, input data from official data input application (Zana), control of procedures and methods of data analysis, removing and/or correction errors in data input, definition of missing procedures, equation models and analysis methods, calculation and analysis of data, definition of database module for preparation of printforms.
- Office work – Introduction and historical overview, description of sites, forests, pastures, analysis of forest inventory data, definition and analysis of forests and pastures functions, definition of forest and pasture management objectives, preparation of management plans for forests, shrubs and pastures, economic evaluation and plan of interventions, preparation of annual plans of forests,
- Finishing work – preparation of management plans, preparation of maps, preparation of data base for input into Albanian Forest Information System (ALFIS), preparation of reports.
- Participatory process and capacity building – preparation of workshops, preparation of training courses, organization and holding of workshops with stakeholders (introduction, progress, final), organization and holding training courses (training for quality control, training for map preparation and usage of GIS, training for usage of satellite data).
- Quality control – definition of quality control for all phases and actions of the project, definition of quality control body, preparation of quality control protocol, remeasurement of 10 % field sample plots, quality control of database (input, analysis and output of data), preparation of quality control reports.
