On the eve of the local elections, the mayor's statements on the greening situation in Tirana, especially those of planting 1 million trees in 5 years, raised strong doubts about the veracity of these claims. The reports on the social media of the heads of the Municipality of Tirana about planting trees and afforestation continued throughout the length of the election campaign. But when the election day passed and the figure of 1 million trees was added and a promise for another million, the official figures of the Municipality of Tirana refute these claims.
Author: Klevin Muka
If we really had as many trees in Tirana as were reported by the mayor, Erion Veliaj, in Facebook, today the citizens of the capital would have a hard time seeing the buildings where they live because of the greenery.
Veliaj's promises for a green Tirana started in 2015, when in his television appearance during the campaign he publicly promised that, if he became mayor, he would remember the parks he built. while announcing and the moratorium on the towers.
The first 3 years at the head of the Municipality were lukewarm for the tree planting campaigns by Mayor Veliaj, while the new towers flourished undisturbed in the capital. And how to overcome the negative image of the towers, in 2018 Veliaj released an idea that would be the envy of every green party in the world.
"The city of Tirana will be surrounded by 2 million trees very soon", said the mayor, Erion Veliaj, in 2018, when he first presented the project Orbital Forest. Through this project, he envisioned the establishment of green borders for the capital, which would be defined by forests located at the edges of the urban area of Tirana.
After the presentation of the initiative, the number of declared, planted trees increased significantly, at least on the Mayor's social networks.
Almost every day Facebook and in Instagram the mayor updated the public with the new initiatives of the municipality that he leads for greening. The most numerous posts are about personal donations of individuals, who mostly donate from 1 to 3 trees. Then come organizations or businesses, which donate from 20 trees, up to 400, reported in one case.
In addition to donations, when citizens plant the trees themselves, in other cases the Parks and Recreation Agency handles this process. In its year of creation, 2015, APR estimated as an achievement the planting of 5.000 trees in 3 months, but after 4 years in operation this figure was exceeded by 5 times in just one day.
Photo APR
At the same time. vIA Facebook-ut number 1 of Tirana declares that in one day, not a few, but 25.000 trees were planted in Vaqarr.
According to the expert EcoAlbania-s, Olsi Nika, this figure is worthy of a world record.
"These are records that are too hard to be true. 1 tree needs at least 10 minutes, in case the pit has been opened before. 25.000 x 5 minutes = 125.000 minutes, we divide it by the number of workers and it comes out, how much time it really takes to do it."
From the photos of Mayor Veliaj, which he has attached to his posts on social networks, the number of workers does not exceed 50 people. According to the accounts, each of the workers has to work 41 hours without any interruption to achieve the record.
Similar records, but not at these levels, Veliaj vows to have achieved in other cases, when he declares that 10.000 trees were planted in one day.
Although in Facebook, Veliaj's campaign for planting trees in Farka continues, in reality the only things that have flourished in the area are constructions.
Work on planting trees, at least in Facebook, did not stop. In October 2022, the mayor of Bshkia declared that a full 550.000 trees have been planted in the capital since the creation of APR, in 2015.
The number of trees in the Artificial Lake Park in Tirana is about 32.000. Based on the figures declared by the Mayor, this means that in the capital there are supposed to be at least 15 more parks in the size of the Artificial Lake, scattered in different spaces, but which are nowhere to be found.
According to the expert, Olsi Nika, apart from the fact that this greenery is not evident in the city of Tirana, it is also mathematically impossible to achieve it at the levels claimed by the mayor.
"Regarding the figure given by Veliaj, that of 550.000 trees in 4 years, this is impossible. It is supposed to plant 188 trees every day in Tirana, for every day of the year, but the trees work with seasons, which are spring and autumn. The planting periods are in February-March and October-November", he adds.
He goes on to explain that another element that makes this number impossible is the space required for each tree. A tree needs a space of 5 square meters, if we calculate it, the green space in Tirana exceeds the urban space of the city, i.e. 31 km2, but we would have dense forests when we leave Tirana, but we don't see these forests anywhere. Tirana is the least shopping city in Europe."
In fact, the mayor's figures raise doubts, even in terms of the feasibility of such an action. Asked about the afforestation campaigns at the territory level, the Ministry of Tourism and Environment told ACQJ that in the period 2011-2021, this ministry through its initiatives planted over 1 million and 100 thousand saplings, rehabilitating a total forest area of 683 hectares . Based on this figure, the Municipality of Tirana in recent years has created a green area of at least 300 hectares or at least 3 square kilometers of dedicated area - space for trees.
The Lake Park today, having seen a great deal of shrinkage over the years due to building permits approved within its historic boundaries, has an average area of 1.8 km2, while based on the claims of the mayor, it falls to him that a new area of more than twice the area of this park has been planted.
Likewise, the mayor's claims regarding the trees planted in Tirana are rejected by the Municipality of Tirana itself through the Parks and Recreation Agency, which in an official response to ACQJ says that, in total in Tirana for the last 6 years, there are planted almost 97 thousand trees, tendered by this institution, with an invoice of 136.925.656 ALL. However, APR answered ACQJ's question about how many trees planted over the years were donations, emphasizing that over 98 trees and shrubs were donations.
No matter how the numbers are read, the APR's response was still far from the claims of Mayor Veliaj. At the same time, in a parallel response from the Municipality of Tirana on the work of APR, the latter states that APR in the period 2015-March 2023, has planted a total of 228,046 trees, which raises strong doubts about the way calculation and inventory of the investments of this institution, falling into strong contradictions with the previous answers, as well as with the official position of the Mayor, Mr. Veliaj.
To ACQJ's questions about how many of the planted trees were donations from third institutions or private persons, the Municipality refused to answer.
ACQJ made a detailed observation of the official website at Facebook of the mayor, collecting all his statements about the trees planted in Tirana, from the beginning of 2019 until March of 2023.
in Facebook about 42.300 trees were reported (approximately by calculation, since in 6 different initiatives he did not specify the number of trees planted).
The number of trees, reported in Facebook, is different from the figure the mayor declared in October 2022 for 550,000 trees planted and different from what the Parks and Recreation Agency says.
However, the approach of the election campaign of May 2023 brought another rhythm of the mayor Veliaj regarding the planting of trees. Through a status on social networks, in March 2023, he declares that 1 million trees have been planted in Tirana, although only 5 months ago he declared that half of this number had been planted in total. The work, which took the Municipality of Tirana five years to complete, was already completed in 5 months.
Veliaj himself in his social media for this period has regularly reported, accompanied by photos, only about 1.390 planted trees. The traces of the other 448,610 trees are nowhere to be found. The forestry specialist from PPNEA, Ilir Shyti, tells ACQJ that, for planting such a number of trees, a space is needed, which exceeds the urban space of the capital. "If they are planted with a distance of 2 meters, for 1 million trees, 4.400 hectares of surface are needed as a minimum. The green area of the Artificial Park is 156 ha. "In this reasoning, the green surface of Tirana should exceed its urban space. The capital is located in the urban area at 40 km2. For 1 million trees, a space of 44 km is needed2.
If there were really 1 million trees in the capital, only the green of the greenery would stand out from Mount Dajti and not the concrete of the towers, which irregularly exceed each other in every corner of the capital.
Orbital Forest, left on paper
Project i Orbital Forest, an ambitious plan of the Municipality of Tirana in 2018, defines it as an instrument for curbing land consumption (agricultural and natural), urban sprawl, identified as the physical limit of the development and expansion of the urban system in the natural environment.
This project defines 5 different environments, components of the whole project, more precisely: Dajti National Park, a protected area, consisting mainly of forests; The area surrounding Lake Farka, the point where the green belt penetrates the city, connecting the park with the fourth ring and the urban environment of the southeastern part of the capital; The area between the former municipality of Vaqarri and Farka, which constitutes the natural link between the Erzen River Park and the Lake Park; the area bounded by the Tirana-Durrës axis, part of a large, agricultural territory, consisting mainly of wood-fruit forests; and the Tirana River Park, consisting of the newest green space of the northern part of Tirana, part of the natural system of the banks of the river.
However, despite efforts and ambitious statements of time of the Mayor, almost the entire initiative, with the exception of the planting of decorative trees in the parks of Lake and Farka, has remained on paper. Even the website of the Municipality of Tirana, dedicated to this initiative, has an anemic content, with no information, except the original plan.
Following an audit conducted by the Supreme State Audit Office, an inability of this institution to implement this plan was observed, emphasizing that "the project of Orbital Forest for planting trees, due to financial impossibility for budget support, as well as problems related to the lack of spaces necessary for planting and ownership issues, results in a low level of realization, although a significant part of the period has passed of the implementation of this objective".
According to urban planner Rodion Gjoka, the idea of Orbital Forest it is fundamentally wrong, if it is not accompanied by afforestation in the inner city area, with parks near residential areas.
"What I see as a problem with this approach are two things. The first is that it is used as a propaganda and aesthetic instrument, but it should not be seen as such, at least for a city like Tirana. Another thing for me as an expert, who monitors the quality of the environment in the capital, is that there are no urban parks within residential areas, but that citizens must access suburban parks. The idea is that a family needs at least a park within walking distance every afternoon, to have daily recreation, then if there are activities or other more substantial things, then yes, it can to access these parks outside their residential area", he adds.
The initiative of Orbital Forest, not only did it not reach its objective, but it failed precisely because its development plan was based on geographical spaces that the Municipality of Tirana itself has given for urban development, starting from the Dry Lake area, the Farka area, where the villa complexes and hills of Dajti National Park are flourishing. Tirana Municipality itself, in response to ACQJ's request, admits that for the Orbital Forest initiative, only 228.000 trees have been planted to date, about 1/10 of the optimistic objective.
While the electoral campaign for the local elections already ended with the chairman of the Socialist Party, who declared that campaign funds would become trees, the only evident park in the capital is that of the Artificial Lake, which, although modest in the trees it contains, only 32 thousand, manages to stand out alongside its rivals with a full 1 million of them. Tirana is now preparing for the next ambitious objective of the Municipality, 2 million trees by 2030, despite the fact that five hundred thousand were planted in just 5 months, at least on social media.
Beyond the massive afforestation highlighted in the social media of the Municipality of Tirana and its Mayor, the residents of Tirana notice the massive planting of concrete buildings, with 382 building permits for new buildings, with a total area of 1.8 million square meters, only for the year 2022, against "1 million trees" planted in more than 7 years.
