Organised crime, gun-toting gangs and money to be made: A report on a seemingly petty criminal offense with a potentially big impact.
In June 2012, in a valley near Leposovic in
northern Kosovo, Kosovo Police, EULEX and forestry officials were
assessing the scale of illegal wood-cutting in the area. Their convoy
discovered evidence of logging such as abandoned tractors with chainsaws
and loaded trucks of wood. As the convoy drove down a bumpy track, they
came under gunfire. EULEX police officers, who were there in a
monitoring and advisory role, said the shooting lasted for several
minutes. Bullets ricocheted off the ground nearby. KP returned warning
fire with their AK 47s. As the convoy manoeuvred its way out of the
danger zone, the shooting gradually ceased. Thankfully, no one had been
injured.
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An area on the Kosovo - Serbia
border/boundary between gates 5 and 31 |
The incident was a dramatic example of just how
important and dangerous the issue of illegal wood-cutting can be. And it
is not the only example. In March 2011, a thirteen year old boy was
shot dead while illegally cutting wood with his father on someone else’s
property. Some forest fires, which can pose a real threat to villages
and people’s lives, are believed to have been started by illegal wood
cutters trying to cover their tracks. The activity has also increased
tensions between different communities. Suffice it to say, it is a real
problem.
“Property disputes should come with a government
warning – they can kill and should not be taken lightly” says EULEX’s
Property Rights Co-ordinator, Declan O’Mahony. “There are criminal
elements acting with impunity, stealing from Kosovo’s public and private
forests, which are weakly protected. The forests of Kosovo provide a
stage on which corruption, organised crime, killings, smuggling and
environmental devastation can be enacted. It’s a significant problem and
needs to be dealt with” says O’Mahony.
Illegal logging comes in many forms in Kosovo
including logging from public forests without permission, logging in
protected areas, false declaration of volume of harvested wood and
illegal logging from private forests. Smuggling and illegal accounting
practices, extend the list further.
According to the Kosovo Forest Agency 42% of Kosovo
is covered by forest. Some 32 % of this area is owned by small
landowners; 68% is publicly owned. According to an inventory carried out
by the Norwegian Forestry Group (NFG), uncontrolled logging occurs in
35% of forest areas. In terms of the volume of wood lost through illegal
practices, the NFG estimate that 100,000m3 is lost per year.
The lack of capacity to protect forests in Kosovo
means that publicly and privately owned forests particularly at the
border/boundary are vulnerable and a prime target of wood thieves. Robby
Zocher, an Investigator in EULEX’s Task Force Mitrovica (TFM) said “If
you happen to be a well organised criminal individual, with resources to
hand, money is figuratively growing in trees and there for the
picking”. The TFM, in an executive capacity, is investigating the case
described in the opening scene of this article....
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