As part of the study entitled “Pastoral land in Albania: From the inherited mosaic to contemporary Mediterranean socio-environmental issues” financed by the AFD French Development Agency) (in partnership with the CTFD (Comité Technique Foncier et Développement), Orianne Crouteix (member of association AIDA) had the opportunity to carry out 6 weeks of fieldwork in Albania on three breeding territories previously worked by members of AIDA (Alice Garnier, Simon Gontard and Besmira Medolli): Mount Pasthiku and its plateau (Has), the Rrungaja (Korça) and Dukat massif and the Karaburun peninsula (Vlora).

The objective of this study is to analyze the land tenure systems of pastoral lands by identifying both the institutional management issues and the local logics of the use of fodder and pastoral resources. This research work assumes an entry through the commons to be understood in their diversity and constant evolution.

During the first field phase (from June 12 to July 5, 2021), a week was spent in each territory in order to carry out 37 semi-structured interviews with managers of forest and pastoral areas and livestock breeders. The second field phase (from October 27 to November 12) was an opportunity to carry out a day of restitution in each territory (Krumë in Has, Vithkuq in the foothills of Rrungaja and Orikum near Dukat) in order to discuss with the local actors of the various elements of the study and to refine the results. This second field period ended in Tirana with a presentation to national actors. See the article (sorry in French!): Albanie, journée d’échange sur le pastoralisme “Albania | Day of exchanges on pastoralism” on this same Website.

This research report is also available on the CTFD website: Le foncier pastoral en Albanie : de la mosaïque héritée aux enjeux sociaux-environnementaux méditerranéens contemporains – Étude de trois territoires ruraux : le Has, la Rrungaja (Korça) et Dukat-Karaburun (Vlora)

Photo (banner): Breeders in Dukat Fushë (Albania), 2016/ Alice Garnier

This article is the result of theEuropean H2020 HNV Link programme conceived in 2016 and coordinate (2016-2018) by François Lerin & Claire Bernard – who were working at the CIHEAM-IAM in Montpellier at the time.

More about HNV Link :

Photo (banner) : Flock of sheep under an olive grove in Epirus (Greece), 2021/ François Lerin.

The documents in open access below are the result of research conducted in Bosnia & Herzegovina from May 2022 to March 2023. This action was organized by the CZZS (Centar za životnu sredinu – Center for the Environment).

This research was entilted: Climate change, biodiversity and agroenvironnement nexus – Building a strategical approach for a territorial sustainable and inclusive development.

The objective was to draw up a strategic diagnosis – for an environmental mobilization – of two B&H north-west municipalities, in Sanski Most and Mrkonjić Grad – therefore both in territories of entities Republika Srpska and Federation of BiH.

The choosen scale of analysis for the diagnosis was to investigate a “territory” that makes sense from the nexus point of view: Climate Change / Biodiversity / Agrienvironment and thus make it possible to converge mobilizations and environmental concerns with a territorial comprehensive strategy.

The result was to strengthen advocacy actions, interpellation of public authorities (at the various levels), encouraging nature-based solutions, and bundling climate change challenges with biodiversity and High Nature Value farming protection.

Documents :

Photo (banner) : Water intake for a micro-hydroelectric power station in the Municipality of Mrkonjić Grad (Bosnia & Herzegovina), 2022 / François Lerin.

François Lerin (AIDA based) and Claire Bernard (CIRAD) dedicated almost a year to conclude a special issue of the Journal Balkanology about “ Environment in the Balkans: Historical and Contemporary questions”, a file with eight scientific articles, both in French (with English summary) and English.

This 2021 volume and all the previous of  Balkanologie are in open source, freely accessible. Founded in 1997, the journal Balkanologie is published by the French Association for Balkan Studies (AFEBalk). Twice a year, it publishes research in the humanities and social sciences relating to South-Eastern Europe, an area understood in the broad sense as extending from Hungary to Turkey, with a large temporal scope: from the Ottoman era to our days.

The introduction by Francois and Claire is only in French deals with Environment in the Balkans: Historical and Contemporary Issues. First we try to tried to find out if the Balkans were a relevant aggregate for dealing with environmental issues – exploring this possible relevance though: the Climate change issue, Biodiversity and resources and pollutions.

But we also try to understand how the environmental issue is “framed” in the Balkans region. To use the pragmatist terms of Richard Rortry, it is a question of giving some indications on the way in which the “scientific conversation” on the environmental question engages in the region.

Over the past three decades, conflicts, wars, nationalism, religious and identity issues have operated as major organizers of social science narratives in the Balkans, as well as issues of governance, post-communist transition and integration into the European Union.

An “audience” for environmental issues has only recently been built around narratives and analysis of related stories, problems and conflicts. Without constituting epistemic or practitioner’s communities, the “program” (of this scientific conversation) is undoubtedly in the process of being constituted…

After this we presents the issue by distributing the articles in three types.

(1) Moments of the environmental history :

• George Andrei Whose Nature Is It? Contesting Forest Regulation and Land Reform in Interwar Transylvania
• Josef Djordjevski “The (Still) Beautiful Blue Adriatic”: Tourism, Yugoslav Socialism, and the Adoption and Limitations of Visual Preservation on the Eastern Adriatic Seaside, 1960s-1990s
• Tibissaï Guevara-Braun 1973, l’année du tournant environnemental dans l’Albanie communiste ? (1973, the Year of the Environmental Turn in Communist Albania?)

(2) Sector analysis :

• Chloé VlassopoulosFrom a Greece of Lignite (Coal) to a Green Greece? The Energy Sector in Forced Transition 
• Hélène Karka The Environmental Conflicts Arising during the Exploitation of Precious Metals in the Chalkididiki Peninsula (Northern Greece)
• Nebojša Vukadinović The Geo-Culture of the Environment in Serbia

(3) Environmental mobilizations :

• Jelisaveta Vukelić, Mina Petrović et Ana Kukuridi Environmental Activism in Serbia: Challenges to Cooperation Between Professional and Grassroots Organisations
• Sanja Potkonjak et Tea Škokić A City Worth Fighting For: Accidental Environmentalism and Resistance in Post-Industrial Society

Aida, in collaboration with the Spatial Laboratory of the University of Thessaly, Volos (Greece) has just completed the publication of the proceedings of the European Conference Troodos-Cyprus of January 2020: Mountain areas of large Mediterranean islandsEuropean issues. National and Regional policies and local mechanisms. Alice Garnier and François Lerin have designed a compact layout for this edition with 26 papers presenting in a synthetic way a work perspective, an organisation, an experience… See the presentation text by Dimitris Goussios & François Lerin “A European Conference on insular Mountain Territories in the Mediterranean”.

Claire Bernard and François Lerin have also tried in this book to make a schematic periodization: “Evolution of the interface between agriculture and environment. For the construction of strategic Mediterranean territorial issues”.

You can download the full document in English or French, the Greek version is forthcoming and will be posted on our website:

Photo (banner): East coast of Evia Island (Greece), summer 2021/ François Lerin