The high cost of energy in Kosovo means that more households are heating with firewood. As a result, illegal logging is on the rise. That's devastating to the forest ecosystem — and puts rangers at risk.
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00:00 The thieves struck only hours before.
00:04 The cuts are fresh.
00:07 The trees were stolen, lots of them.
00:10 It was the work of timber thieves.
00:13 Ranger Vebi Brahimi says he finds scenes like this on patrol almost every day.
00:22 It really infuriates me and my co-workers.
00:26 It doesn't only destroy the forests.
00:28 It affects the entire ecosystem.
00:33 These days, cases like this keep us busy around the clock.
00:43 Vebi Brahimi is one of a small force of rangers patrolling the Golak Mountains, a vast area
00:49 covering some 11,000 hectares.
00:52 The ranger says they're mostly fighting a losing battle.
00:56 More and more land is being razed.
01:00 Illegal logging in these forests is terrible because the forest takes so long to regrow.
01:05 It doesn't happen overnight or even in a single year.
01:11 Usually the illegal harvest ends up here, in private homes as firewood.
01:17 Most local families still heat with wood.
01:19 The war in Ukraine has also sent energy prices soaring in poverty-stricken Kosovo and opened
01:25 doors for illegal traders.
01:27 The stolen timber is sold at roadsides in the area.
01:34 We shot this footage with a hidden camera.
01:37 This is four cubic meters of the best wood for burning, beech.
01:41 Actually it's even a bit more, but you can have it for 40 euros a cubic meter, 160 for
01:46 all of it.
01:49 Is that legal?
01:50 We don't want any trouble with the police.
01:53 No, no problem.
01:54 I take care of things like that.
01:56 I'll bring the wood, unload it and bring the machine to cut it up, but that'll cost
02:00 extra.
02:03 Not far away we meet these two brothers.
02:06 They are involved in the business with stolen timber, so they don't want to be identified.
02:14 They say it's the only way they have to make some money and get through the cold winter.
02:22 If we didn't have this business, we'd have to live without a fire, only with blankets.
02:28 Then we might not make it through till spring.
02:32 It would be really tough, especially if the winter is very hard.
02:37 At a neighbour's place, they show us the machine they use.
02:48 It's handmade, very old and indestructible.
02:52 They use it to saw the stolen logs that they then sell.
02:58 They know many of their customers personally.
03:02 The wood comes from this area and farther afield.
03:06 Our customers steal the timber because they're poor.
03:09 They collect the logs and load them into their tractors.
03:14 They say they themselves would never steal timber from the forests.
03:19 The risk of getting caught is too high.
03:22 Their suppliers keep running into rangers in the mountains.
03:26 They're scared.
03:27 They've been caught and punished quite often, so they give the rangers a little payoff.
03:33 But they aren't really corrupt.
03:35 They know what our situation is like and they just want to make a little money themselves,
03:40 mainly for their children.
03:47 Back in the Golak Mountains, Ranger Brahimi is familiar with these allegations, but doesn't
03:53 put much stock on them.
03:55 On the contrary, he says, the thieves are violent and don't even shy away from murder.
04:01 Four years ago, they shot one of his fellow rangers at four in the afternoon.
04:09 That could have been me or one of my other colleagues.
04:12 We worked together until 3pm.
04:15 Only one or two hours longer and he would have got us too.
04:20 Suddenly the weather changes.
04:23 In these conditions, Head Ranger Menderes Ibra goes out on patrol himself.
04:29 He says the timber thieves feel safe in the mountains in rain and cold, because they know
04:34 his division doesn't have the budget to properly go after them.
04:41 We need more staff, more money and more technical equipment.
04:46 For now we're doing whatever we can to stop the illegal logging with what's available
04:50 to us.
04:52 But it won't be enough.
04:53 We just don't have enough resources.
04:56 We need more.
05:02 And so the illegal logging in Kosovo continues.
05:07 Broad stretches of this corner of the Balkans have long been covered by pristine forests.
05:13 But how much longer will these forests survive?