Greenhouse gas emissions and removals in land and forests

Forests in Kosovo are the largest sink of carbon and have a major impact on the trend in the land use, land use change and forestry sector. This sink has increased following a downward trend in firewood removal and an upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO₂) sequestration in . [1] Based on the results of the National Forest Inventory, it was found that forests are the main category of land use, at about 47 %. Compared with the inventory conducted in 2002, it is found that the areas of forests, meadows and pastures, and settlements have increased, while the areas of agricultural land and other land areas .

According to the data from Corine Land Cover (2018), forests and semi-natural areas predominate, at about 57 %, followed by agricultural land, at about 38 %, while artificial areas represent .

The future trends of increasing the sinks from forests are mainly driven by ambitions from the forestry strategy reflected in the modelling of the scenario . The strategy states the goals of reducing illegal logging by 70 % by 2030 and increasing the forest area by .