Geoparky Albánie

From 1966 in Albania, has been defined the grounds under protection as national forest parks in the following places: Thethi in Shkodra region, Lura in Dibra region, Dajti in East Tirana, Bozdoveci in Korca, Divjaka in Lushnja, Llogara in Vlora. With another special decision of CM in January 1996, five new national parks has been added to this list: Tomorri in Berati for its special habitat, Valbona in Tropoja for its biodiversity, Hotova in Permeti for its fir forest, Qafe-Shtama in Kruja for their biodiversity. On 1994 Laguna of Karavasta and the forest park of Divjaka has been also classified as "Natural Ecosystems".
Governments of our country have continuously followed the steps of legislation to protect the natural heritage of the country together with its cultural heritage. However, the concept of geo-monuments is not officially recognized until now. For this reason the authors have undertaken the project for digitizing in GIS format of geo-monuments and geo-parks of Albania, in which project will be compiled the basic data for each geo-monument and geo-park. The argumentation for some national parks and some geo-monuments, which in fact consist in geo-parks, will be done for the first time.
In our country, are defined several national forest parks as well as different biodiversity preserves. Natural parks, of course have been already proclaimed as such for their vegetation and mainly for their woods. Never has been considered the formational and geo-morphological aspect of the territory for the designed park. But, in reality, almost all natural parks have picturesque geo-morphology and in their territories exist many rare geological and geo-morphological phenomena, which constitute geo-monuments.
In all natural forest parks as in it of Valbona, Thethi, Lura, Dajti, Llogara etc, with the biodiversity are also geo-monuments of national and international importance. In this case they are not simply forest parks or preserves, but constitute important geo-parks with complex values.
Is derived that "geo-park" concept defines a territory with different dimensions in which are found special species of flora and fauna - the biodiversity, but also special geological and geo-morphological phenomena - the geo-diversity. From the recent studies and specially from the studies and publications for the geo-monuments and the special geo-parks of our country, must be reviewed the definition of protected grounds as national parks in order to proclaim them as national geo-parks. On the other hand, some of them could be made ready with the support of governmental bodies to complete their documentation, management and infrastructure in order to include them in the European system of geo-parks. Some of Albanian geosites are included on the UNESCO Program. So Karavasta's Lagoon and Divjaka's Forest on the Adriatic coastline are included on Ramsar legatine program. Ohrid Lake and Butrinti lake are included under UNSESCO Program.

ZDROJ:http://www.cprm.gov.br