1 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Executive Summary 3 Acknowledgements 9 Chapter 1: Introduction 11 Chapter 2: Background and Literature Review 12 2.1 The Vjosa River and its Catchment 12 2.2 Biodiversity in the Vjosa Catchment 15 2.3 Medicinal and Aromatic Plants 20 2.4 Overview of the Economic Impact of MAPs in Albania 21 2.5 Structural Overview of the MAPs Industry 22 2.6 MAPs Trade in the Vjosa Valley 23 2.7 HPP Development in the Vjosa Catchment 26 2.8 Role of EcoAlbania 28 Chapter 3: Methodology 29 3.1 Inventory of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants 29 3.2 Field Study and Interviews 36 3.3 Developing a Short Documentary 43 3.4 Data Management 44 Chapter 4: Project Results 45 4.1 Create an Inventory of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in the Vjosa Watershed 45 4.2 Practices and Perspectives of Persons and Organizations Involved with the Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Trade in the Vjosa Watershed 46 4.3 Identify Themes for a Documentary about the Effects of the Dam on the MAPs trade and Rural Livelihood 52 Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations 55 Bibliography 56 Appendices 59 Authorship 112 1 Abstract The Vjosa River in Albania faces controversy with the development of hydropower, threatening its natural state. Our goal was to determine the social impacts of the potential dams on the medicinal and aromatic plant (MAP) trade in the Vjosa catchment area. To accomplish this, our team worked with EcoAlbania to assess current MAP information available and interview stakeholders in the MAP trade to evaluate the social impact that MAPs have on rural communities. By creating a complete inventory of the MAPs in the Vjosa region and preparing a short documentary to present the social impacts of the potential dams on the communities and trade, our sponsor can use that information to further their cause of preserving the natural state of the Vjosa River. 2 Executive Summary The Vjosa Watershed The Vjosa River is one of the largest rivers in Albania (Figure 1). It is considered to be one of the last wild rivers in Europe, as there are no dams along its main course. The districts in the Vjosa catchment area are incredibly biodiverse, with over 700 taxa of higher plants found in only Gjirokastra (Malo 2010). However, this rare natural state is threatened by more than 25 small hydropower plants (HPPs) either planned or already under construction along the Vjosa and its tributaries. Environmentalists, including our sponsor, EcoAlbania, are working to encourage the government to save its natural state and prevent dam construction. Figure 1: Vjosa River (© L. Shuka) Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs) Over the past decade there has been a clear increase in the demand for medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs). These MAPs are defined as “botanical raw materials,” from which herbal and medicinal drugs, culinary spices, and cosmetic products are created (ITC, http://www.intracen.org/itc/sectors/medicinal-plants/). There is also a section within the MAPs trade that is focused on essential oils, which are processed from the MAPs and then sold at a 3 higher value. These products are highly sought by medicinal practitioners and common people alike, therefore increasing the demand for MAPs each year (ITC, http://www.intracen.org/itc/sectors/medicinal-plants/). MAPs trade in Albania The supply chain is generally composed of local harvesters, district collectors and production companies. Local harvesters are responsible for either collecting plants from the wild or cultivating them. Independent collectors at the district level buy MAPs from wild harvesters and cultivators, and act as middlemen between the harvesters and the production companies. There are two types of district level collectors, with facilities and without. District level collectors without facilities usually purchase plants in several different districts, using personal relationships with their harvesters and cultivators in order to make their business as successful as possible (Imami et al 2015). The collectors sell to three different markets: packagers, medium processors and large processors. Medium and large processor receive MAPs directly from cultivators (Figure 2). Medium-sized processors are mainly responsible for direct sales to foreign customers, (USAID 2009) while large processors have a more organized operation, working with large international company such as McCormick's (Paul 2014); (USAID 2009). Figure 2: Flowchart of the Supply Chain (USAID 2009) A large portion of the rural Albanian livelihood, as 35% of community income is based in the MAP trade (Furth 2015). Medicinal and aromatic plants products are involved in the everyday life of rural Albanians and the majority are collected from wild-grown plants within 4 the watershed. They provide income to many families, help preserve cultural heritage through their use in folk medicinal practice, and on a national scale, stimulate the growth of Albania’s international exports (Imami et al 2015). Figure 3 provides illustrations for some of plants found in the Vjosa valley. Figure 3: Salvia officinalis (right) and Thymus longicaulus (left) (© L. Shuka) Objectives Our sponsor, EcoAlbania, is a non-governmental environmental group, created by professors from the University of Tirana and the Albanian “Save the Blue Heart of Europe” team. EcoAlbania wants to know more about the plants in this ecosystem and to what extent they might be threatened by proposed dam construction. The goal of our project was to determine the social impacts of a potential dam on the medicinal and aromatic plant trade in the Vjosa watershed region, looking specifically at Permet, Tepelene and Kelcyre. Our sponsor does not have up-to-date information on the status of MAPs, so they want more information to assist in their goal of preserving the natural state of the Vjosa River, using the results of our project as promotional material. To achieve this goal, we compiled the following objectives: 1. Create a comprehensive inventory of medicinal and aromatic plant species in the Vjosa watershed and evaluate the findings 5 2. Delineate the practices of people involved with medicinal and aromatic plant trade and collection in the Vjosa watershed 3. Identify themes for a documentary based on interviews to be used as promotional material to advocate for the preservation of the rural livelihood Methods Some key methods employed by our team to accomplish this project include the utilization of interviews and field study within the regions of Përmet, Tepelenë and Këlcyrë, along with the analysis of previously published data. One of our first steps in this project was to create a complete and in-depth inventory of the medicinal and aromatic plants found in the Vjosa Valley through the synthesis of information from a few Masters and PhD theses and several reference books. For each plant in the spreadsheet, we included its Latin name, Albanian name, English name, locations it can be found, the type of plant (i.e. angiosperm, gymnosperm) and its endangerment state, if applicable. We also conducted several semi-structured interviews in order to gain more information about the MAP industry. By interviewing key stakeholders in the MAP supply chain, we were able to analyze the perspective of each level of the chain, develop conclusions on each level’s contribution to the industry and estimate the dam’s impact on each level. After conducting interviews in both Tirana and the Vjosa basin, our team developed a short documentary to showcase the social impacts of the MAPs trade and the potential dam on rural communities. We did this by identifying the major themes to include in the documentary by analyzing previous interviews and determining which clips and interviews supported those themes. The documentary will be used by our sponsor as a persuasion tool to further their organization’s goal to preserve the natural state of the Vjosa River. 6 Findings Inventory of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in the Vjosa Watershed After the creation of the inventory of MAPs in the Vjosa watershed, we were able to analyze it to evaluate which plants were most commonly collected and which plants were most endangered. The information we found proves that the Vjosa is in incredibly biodiverse region in terms of plant species. Yet we discovered that approximately 12% of the plants that we included in our inventory were either endangered or threatened to some extent. This finding leads us to believe that the biodiversity in the Vjosa region could be in danger if these plant populations do not recover. In addition, from the interviews we conducted with collectors and production companies, most were not concerned about the state of the engenderment but were trading MAPs that were labeled as vulnerable on the red list. For example, Agathokli Proko, a collector, referred to mountain tea (çaj mali) as protected and endangered but he mentioned that it was still commonly traded. Practices and Perspectives of Persons and Organizations Involved with the Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Trade in the Vjosa Watershed Throughout our time in our field study, the bulk of the information about the harvesters, collectors and production companies was obtained from interactions and interviews with key stakeholders. The field study thoroughly clarified the roles of the stakeholders and how they interacted with one another. Unfortunately, our team was not able to conduct interviews with local harvesters, but we obtained information about them from collectors and production companies. One of the most important findings we discovered for the role of harvesters within the MAPs trade was how important the collectors are for their position in the industry. Agathokli Proko, a collector in Permet, said during an interview that most harvesters do not have the means of taking their plants to the next step (personal communications, Nov. 15 2016).