Total economic value of forest fire damage. The case of Albania

Dr. Albana Jupe¹, M.Sc. Lirola Keri², M.Sc. Alda Taka¹

¹Faculty of Economics and Agribusiness, Agriculture University of Tirana, Albania
²National Accounting Council

Abstract
Albanian forest and pasture resources, in the two last decades have been destroyed mainly from illegal cutting and lack of further investment on the forest generation. Furthermore, forest fires represent a threatened phenomenon spread almost in Mediterranean areas whose consequences are leading to severe cost in the forest ecosystem. Assessment of damages to timber, non-wood forestry products and cost of work against fires and further regeneration cost is based in the methodology approved and applied by the experts of the Ministry of Environment in Albania. On the other side, the negative effects on the ecological functions provided by forest ecosystems are not assessed, non-estimating the total cost of forest fires. The goal of this study is to conduct the approach on fire valuation methodology applied in some of European countries and developed by European experts on assessment of socio-economic damages from forest fires in Europe (Pettenella et al, 2008), considering all the goods and services that a forest provides. Formulas for the calculations of different functions of forest ecosystem are modified and applied using the existing data on forest fire and resulting in concreate values of cost fire in Albania.

Key words: forest fire, total economic value, methodology on assessment of direct and indirect damages from fire in forest