The urge to write these lines was given to me by a trip I had in the district of Mat, in the village of Macukull invited by some peasants of this wonderful village, with this much wonderful people suffering for the water drop by drought and they would like to have that much water as they produce milk with their animal daily.
It is not my aim that in these few lines to describe enumerate what I saw and to write about the ineffaceable impressions they made to me. Whole pages would be needed. I like to speak, not saying to cry out, only for a phenomenon that made me very sad during this trip and which is connected exactly with the water and the drought. This painful phenomenon is the piecemeal disappearance of the forests.
On my way to Macukull I saw entire deforested hills, whose trees had been cut almost at the roots. Near them, tilled pieces of land and sown with plants, nuts and other agricultural cultures, burned for a water drop, were totally undeveloped and looked half dry.
The stocks of planks and beams that one sees everywhere in Tirana squares and in Albania appeared before my eyes. Part of them may be from the cut woods in Macukull and its surroundings.
I thought again about the water and the forests because where there is water, there are forests and where there are forests, there is water, there is no drought.
The forests trees with their many deep roots make the soil friable and very porous and able to, deposit considerable quantities of water, which in dry and hot periods of the year feed the surface water flows, so necessary for every living creature on earth.
The influence of the forests in distributing the water flow, which is formed by the atmospheric rain, within the year, is sensitive and very important.
The forests slow down the snow melting, prolonging thus the period of water provision for the surface flows. This reduces the big bringing of these flows and reduces sensitively the rivers floods and the ground erosion, which are so evident and destructive in our country. In the same way the forests act with the rainfall, decelerating their flow and creating abundant underground water reserves, which continue to flow even during the dry periods of the year, when there are no atmospheric rainfalls.
Forests decrease sensitively the evaporation of the water from the earths surface, where they vegetate even when the air temperatures are high. This is especially important for the remote areas, far from the coastline, where in the hot seasons, the absence of humidity in the air is quite more accentuated.
The natural or the cultivated forests around the reservoirs protect the earth from erosions, from the surface water flows not allowing thus their filling with solid bringing and making them practically everlasting. Their values would be extraordinary for the eco-tourism, which would multiply the interests of each citizen to visit them and live around.
These forests, populated by wild animals and birds create very important eco-systems, with a variety of habitats, with a variable biodiversity, with big and special values.
These would be in a summarised way some of the concerns that everyone would experience that goes to search for water in an area where men with their conscientious activity, are impoverishing it from this vital and irreplaceable element, maltreating the forests and rarely wiping them out.
Of course what I said above about the forests is only an assessment from the viewpoint of a man who dealt with waters and seeks water everywhere because water is life. Undoubtedly, the forests have many other very useful values.
The forests in themselves are big natural combines, from which we receive very precious products, starting from the wood, the forest fruits, the mushrooms, medicinal herbs, and up to the meat of the wild birds and animals.
Agro forestry and the forestry tourism are new sectors in development and of much interest for the economic and social development of our country.
The forestry economy creates great spaces for employment and a better living. The forests have a very important and priority role in the protection of the environment we live in and in keeping it clean. Therefore they are called the globes lungs.
Closing these lines, not hesitatingly, I may say that the forests are our planets life itself. We altogether must protect them, increase them and care for them because in this way we care for our health and well being. |
