Wrote: Etrit Rexhepi
Hysen Durmishi, Acting Minister of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure, has announced that he has signed the decision for preliminary protection of "Mount Mokna" and "Lake Ujman".
in NOTIFICATION which he published on Monday (October 27), he claimed that with this decision, Kosovo becomes the state with the highest percentage (12.4%) of territory under nature protection in the entire Western Balkans.
What's wrong with this claim?
Hibrid.info has found reports from international institutions that refute Durmish's claim.
Durmish's post:
"We have put "Mount Mokna and Lake Ujman" under protection"
Dear citizens, last week I signed the decision for the preliminary protection of "Mount Mokna and Lake Ujman", one of the most important decisions for the protection of nature in our country.
With this decision, the Republic of Kosovo becomes the state with the highest percentage of territory under nature protection in the entire Western Balkans.
After a year-long field study, it was found that this area constitutes a rare natural asset, with rich biodiversity and landscapes of particular ecological and scientific importance.
The area with an area of 192.19 km² is now under preliminary protection, raising the percentage of Kosovo's territory that is legally protected to 12.4%.
Analyze:
Hibrid.info has researched this issue using search engines. During the search, reports were found with data on the percentage of terrestrial protected areas allocated to individual countries, including a World Bank report for 2024 (see here).
The table does not provide figures for Kosovo, but based on the data presented, except for Bosnia and Herzegovina (9.5%), all other Western Balkan countries have a higher percentage than what Durmish claimed for Kosovo (12.4%) regarding the protected nature territory.
Percentage of terrestrial protected areas in the Western Balkans according to the World Bank
| Sell | Percentage of protected nature territory (%) |
| Northern Macedonia | 28.2 |
| Albania | 23.6 |
| Montenegro | 21.7 |
| Serbia | 13.4 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 9.5 |
Hibrid.info has also found a 2023 report, published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) (see here).
This report also confirms that Kosovo does not rank first in the Western Balkans in terms of the percentage of legally protected territory, leaving behind only Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This European Union (EU) agency, in its separate sections for countries, writes that the share of protected land area in Kosovo constituted 11.6% of the territory in 2022. Since 2005, the number of protected areas has increased significantly, from less than 50 to over 250 areas (see here).
Conclusion:
The claim of Acting Minister Hysen Durmishi that "Kosovo has the highest percentage of protected territory in the Western Balkans" is untrue.
Data from the World Bank and the European Environment Agency (EEA) clearly show that some countries in the region, particularly North Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro, have a higher percentage of protected areas than Kosovo.
Based on the methodology of checking statements, hibrid.info assesses the claim of the acting minister as "False statement".
Reasoning:
In the category of truthfulness, those statements that contain statements related to objective facts, the accuracy of which can be determined through objective verification, are evaluated. Statements treated in this category receive the assessment – false statement, half-truth, or even true statement.