Since the collapse of socialism, land use has changed dramatically in Albania. When I first visited the country in 2003, one of the more obvious changes jumped out at me before I had even set a foot on Albanian soil. As the plane descended upon Rinas Airport outside of Tirana, I was struck by the mosaic of agricultural plots that came into sight. This vast area of cropland in its mix of warm colors, stood out among the settlements and wooded hills. As we descended further, I could identify individual houses, cars and even haystacks. It was then that I realized how tiny these plots were. Some, I figured, did not measure more than maybe 100 square meters. This observation was even more striking because, in preparation for my visit, I had read Örjan Sjöberg's (1991) essential book on socialist rural Albania, in which he describes the functioning of mechanized, industrial agriculture on large cooperative parcels.

The fragmentation of the collective plot structure that so struck me, however, was just one of many land use changes that occurred after the collapse of socialism. In this chapter, I provide a basic description of these changes and classify them into four distinct patterns: fragmentation of land use, inter-village intensification and extensification, intra-village intensification and extensification, and forest degradation. The following four chapters will examine each pattern, and the forces driving each pattern, in detail.