Four programmes, one mountain

Every managed parcel is inventoried on a five-year cycle: species composition, stem density, regeneration and evidence of illegal cutting. The resulting plan sets an annual allowable cut, distributed as household quotas by the assembly rather than by us.

Harvesting is permitted only from stems marked in advance by a coordinator. Unmarked cutting suspends the quota of the entire village for the following season — a rule the villages themselves proposed, and the reason it works.

From 1 June to 30 September a volunteer watch rota covers the two ridges with the widest field of view. We maintain 37 km of firebreak by hand and machine each spring, keep four tool caches stocked, and run a pre-season drill with the municipal brigade.

Overgrazing in the years after 1997 stripped the sward from the most accessible pastures and pushed flocks onto steeper, more fragile ground. Recovery has come from three unglamorous instruments: an agreed opening date, a stocking ceiling per family, and functioning water points that let flocks spread instead of concentrating.

Sward height and species composition are measured at fixed points each July. The data belongs to the assembly and is presented to it in plain language, with the good years and the bad ones shown side by side.

Each January we run seminars in three villages on flock health, hay budgeting, and the economics of holding a pasture closed for three extra weeks. Attendance is voluntary and typically around 120 households.

We grow black pine, Austrian pine, downy oak, manna ash, field maple and wild pear from seed collected locally. No exotic species enter our nurseries, and no planting is done on natural pasture.

Planting runs in two windows, late autumn and early spring, on slopes selected for erosion risk and seed-source distance. Volunteer days are organised village by village; schools take the gentler terrain.

Survival is counted in April on permanent sample plots and reported honestly. Our five-year average survival is 71%, which is a decent figure on this rock and a poor one on the best ground. We publish both.

Nine schools in the Krujë area take part in autumn and spring forest days: planting, nursery work, and an afternoon of identifying what is actually growing on their own hillside.

Each August we host a ten-day field camp for secondary and university students — inventory technique, erosion mapping, and a week of living with the people who do this work daily.

Three marked trails link the highland pastures with the historic approach to Qafë Shtamë. Guiding, homestay referrals and a small visitor contribution return directly to the villages hosting the route.