Between 2000 and 2022, Kosovo lost 15,980 hectares of forest, equivalent to between 2 and 3.5 hectares disappearing every single day. Illegal logging, firewood dependency, agricultural expansion, and weak enforcement stripped our hillsides bare.

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Now, new research shows the crisis has entered a more dangerous phase. In just three years between 2022 and 2025 - 35,259 hectares were affected by fire, of which approximately 17,176 hectares were active forest before the flames arrived. Nearly half of all burned land was forest.

 

The years 2024 and 2025 alone accounted for more than 84% of all fire damage in that period, making them the most destructive on record.

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The regions of Prishtina and Mitrovica bore the heaviest impact, together accounting for more than half of all burned areas nationally. Fire is no longer an isolated or seasonal event it is a systemic threat, shaped by prolonged drought, rising temperatures, and the cumulative pressure of decades of forest loss.

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The air our children breathe, the water our villages drink, the landscapes we call home  all of it depends on forests we are losing right now.

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But this is not a story about despair. It's about what happens when people decide to act.