Update #22: Overview of the 2024 / January 1, 2025

Despite the numerous challenges we faced in 2024, including the need to rebuild our greenhouse and a lower-than-expected survival rate in the 2023 area, our team persevered. We managed to plant 11,470 Black pines, expand our operations to municipality areas, provide trees and support for other NGOs’ reforestation, bring schools and institutions to Lurë, and expand our community support.

Reforestation

Planting 11,470 trees on 13.84 ha

Through our submitted projects, we are allowed to work on the three areas in the 2nd protected zone in Lurë-Dejës Mt. National Park (blue border in the map below). This year, we have achieved an enormous milestone by finishing restoration in all of these areas. We completed the restoration of the remaining 13.84 ha and planted 9,770 Black pine saplings in the areas marked by green color in the map below.

With the completion of restoration in the 13.84 ha areas, our work now shifts to maintenance, monitoring, and replacing dead saplings to maintain a minimum survival rate of 70% (for area 2023). After 5 years from planting (for each area), we can consult with AKZM and AdZM Dibër to change the status of the land from degraded to restored.

For more information about our survival rate monitoring done during 2024, please read the Update #21: 2024 Monitoring report.

8,800 trees from our nursery

One of our significant achievements was the production of 8,800 2-year-old Black pine saplings for our reforestation needs. These unique saplings, produced from seed to sapling in the National Park, are ideal for high-altitude reforestation. While we did not cover 100% of our requirements, we are on track to achieve that goal in 2025.

Producing our saplings means we can be 100% confident about the origins of the seeds, growing methods, fertilizer use, and climate where saplings grow. We are eliminating the cost of buying saplings and transporting them to Lurë and minimizing our plastic waste footprint (reduced by almost 80%) by using reusable growing containers.

1st planting area on municipality land

Throughout 2024, we have been deepening cooperation with the National Forestry Agency, which resulted, among other things, in our first expansion into municipality land and the opening of a new planting area in Pregj-Lurë, where we planted 1,700 Black pine saplings on a total area of 2.46 ha.

During the planting, we had the pleasure of hosting the general director and representatives of the NFA, the municipality of Peshkopi, and the district of Dibër.

Collaborations with 2 NGOs

A significant achievement of the project was the cooperation with other CSOs that wanted to plant trees in the national park. We supported the Albanian Ornithological Society and Terre des hommes, enabling them to organize their planting events. These two organizations financed 1,336 saplings within the 2024 planting areas. Albanian Ornithological Society financed and planted 336 during the 1st weekend of November, and Terre des hommes financed planting 800 saplings with local workers and planted the remaining 200 with schools from Elbasan, Fier, Peshkopi and Lurë during their event, see the map for planting locations.

Tree nursery

New greenhouse, updates and equipment

Our greenhouse, which we built in 2023, was destroyed during the winter due to a sudden and vast amount of snowfall. The roof collapsed from the weight of the snow. We rebuilt the greenhouse using a simpler construction because we did not require the roof to stay in the winter. Instead, we expose the saplings to the snow during the winter as they would in nature.

This allowed us to make a few more changes, such as improving the weather and nursery monitoring system, building a storage shed, and creating a compost/substrate mixing area.

As our Black pine needed to be transplanted into the larger growing containers for the second year, we purchased 400 pieces of BCC HIKO V400 reusable trays and built elevated supports for them so that we could continue growing the saplings above the ground.

Saplings production

In spring 2024, we prepared seeds for planting Black pine and European fir. We aimed for a capacity of 15,000 Black pine and around 10,000 European fir seedlings.

Black pine seeds were planted in two different soil compositions: the majority in 100% peat substrate and a smaller number of containers in 10% substrate and 90% soil. While the seeds planted in the peat substrate had an excellent germination rate, the seeds in the soil did germinate, but the seedlings did not survive. We, however, hope to have close to 10,000 seedlings in the spring of 2025.

European fir seeds were planted into 100% of the peat substrate into large elevated trays. The germination rate in the past years was only 40%, meaning using containers is not economical. Unfortunately, none of the seeds germinated, likely due to the seeds’ age or bad storage practices.

Two-year-old Black pine saplings were separated and transplanted into larger containers, each sapling into an individual cell in the container. This ensures the saplings have the best conditions for growth, there is no competition, and the saplings are ready to be planted in the Autumn of the second year.

Community & Education

Expanding community impact

We have expanded our engagement with the local community to a record 40 workers for the planting operation. So far, this has been the biggest interest of local men, women, and youth, who took advantage of the seasonal jobs we created through the reforestation project.

The tree nursery provided much-needed jobs for the local women, working on seed planting and transplanting seedlings into larger containers for the second year. Trees for Lurë continues to be the only income opportunity for women in Lurë.

School events

For the second autumn planting season, we hosted school events. The first event was organized with the local school Sh.M.B. “Nikoll Kaçorri” in Fushë-Lurë, and the other with the Nënë Tereza school from Rrëshen.

Like last year, we prepared a one-day program for each school. The program consists of a visit to the tree nursery, where the students have the opportunity to learn about different species, the processes of collecting seeds, and the growth of saplings. After the tree nursery, we continue with visits to the planting areas and planting the saplings.

Technology

In Autumn 2023, we installed the first version of our weather and nursery monitoring system. It was a prototype based on the Arduino platform to test whether we could build an in-house monitoring system to collect crucial weather and soil moisture data. After more than a year of operation, we gathered a good dataset for the monitored indicators and vital experience of what to improve and change to make the monitoring system more resilient and reliable.

In 2024, we upgraded the system with the Radiation shield from Barani Design, which significantly improved temperature and air humidity measurements.

We will be working on a second version of the system in 2025, which will add rainfall measurement (precipitation), soil temperature measurements and improve solar power management and power consumption.

Deepening collaboration with institutions

In 2024, we have worked very hard to deepen our collaboration and relationships with Albanian institutions within the forestry sector. Most notably, we established cooperation with the National Forestry Agency, which governs municipality-owned forest land in Albania. Our cooperation resulted in the new planting area in Pregj-Lurë, and we are looking into other areas suitable for reforestation.

We have engaged with the Agriculture University in Tirana to exchange experience and knowledge, paving the way for further engagement during monitoring and nursery operations.

Team changes

We had some team changes in 2024, which is understandable as we are all still working on a volunteer basis. Gentjana Lasku and Olgerta Puta left the Trees for Lurë in 2024. We want to thank Gentjana for her help during the planting operations and tree nursery (re)building and planting. The same thanks go to Olgerta, who has managed our finances since the beginning of the project. Thank you very much, and best of luck in your new adventures.

We are excited to welcome Elisa Koromani as our new economist and finance wizard. Elisa will take over all the accounting from Olgerta and Pavel and oversee all our legal obligations as an NGO.

What a year!

As you can see, 2024 was packed. Despite facing challenges and having our fair share of disappointments, the whole team is very proud of what we achieved. We hope we will continue to work on restoration in Lurë, expand our project to new areas, and implement new ideas in 2025!

We must also thank every partner and individual donor who supported us in 2024 and allowed us to achieve everything you’ve just read about.

On behalf of the whole team,
Pavel