Also the police, in protection of forests of Deçan

This memorandum has enabled the establishment of two checkpoints in the municipality, in which the police officers will be present for 24 hours together with forest protection officers and their main task will be control the timber size, which passes through those streets.

Chief Executive of KFA, Ahmet Zejnullahu, said that the purpose of this cooperation is the protection of forests in the municipality of Deçan, as the condition of these forests in this area is not at the proper level.

"This memorandum applies to only municipality of Deçan and through this form of cooperation, police officers and forest officials will be engaged, who will be located at two static checkpoints, where they will stay 24 hours to control the timber size, because the entire timber size in this municipality passes through these two checkpoints, "said Zejnullahu.

He said that through this cooperation, these officials will verify the timber size and in those two checkpoints could no longer pass any timber size, without verification by the officials of these two local institutions. In function of defense, Zejnullahu said they have engaged a large number of inspectors, who inspect each municipality in Kosovo. However, within the protection of forests from illegal loggers, now the agency is committed to protection of forest fires, and from diseases and damages that can happen to forests by strong winds. In the first half of this year, despite the fact that the competencies for protection of forests were transferred to municipalities of Kosovo, Kosovo Forest Agency has conducted 372 controls in forest areas in total, and during this period due to damage of forests, has submitted 102 cases in total to courts.

In Kosovo, the total land area of forest is about 464 thousand hectares, where about 278,000 hectares are public forests and about 186,000 hectares are private forests.

M.ZEKA