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the trees such as different kinds of oak (Quercus valonae, Quercus liex, Ceratonia siliqua)
and the wild cotton (Gomphocarpus ruticosus and Eophorbia dendrioder) (see Nasi, Prifti
et.al. 2004: 22). To a certain extent, in most of the area the vegetation is damaged as the result
of building of terraces, fires and goat overgrazing.
The dominant minerals are calcium and other carbonates. The rough relief is imbued with
many streams and torrents that disappear in the summer and reappear again in the late autumn
and winter. Rainy winters provoke the runoff and sediment loss caused by the precipitation.
The area is tectonically active. According to the report on the conservation of wetland and the
coastal ecosystems in the Mediterranean region “tectonic movements and shifting sea-bed
morphology determine cliff erosion, creating recesses along the coast in the form of caves and
canyons. Weather and the assailing forces of waves from the open Ionian Sea cause basal cliff
erosion to the karstic limestone rocks” (1999: 13 United Nations Development Programme
Global Environment Facility).
Mountainous terrain and the seasonally wet Mediterranean climate are two main reasons for
erosion and land degradation in Himarë/Himara area as well as elsewhere on the southern
coast and in the Alpine area of the northern Albania (see Dedej 2002:12). Throughout the
centuries in some areas the extent of erosion became greater as it was accelerated by
unfavourable human activities such as over-cultivation and use of fertilizers 17 (present since
1970), deforestation, creation of artificial water reservoirs and dams, extraction of the inert
material like gravel and sand, diverting of rivers from their natural streams, irrational tourism,
etc.
1.3. Dhërmi/Drimades
Dhërmi/Drimades stretches for about three kilometres along the national coastal road and is
divided in three hamlets: Kondraça, Gjilek/Gjilekates, and Dhërmi/Drimades as the village
centre. As people say, Dhërmi/Drimades or the centre (e qëndra or o kendros) was founded
sometime in the 13 th century, when the population of Palesti (nowadays Palasa) expanded and
moved further on to the neighbouring hills of today’s central hamlet of Dhërmi/Drimades.
17 According to the research report on Soil Survey in Albania the usage of fertilizers in Albania began in 1970s
with the construction of two factories: one for the nitrogen and another for phosphate fertilizers (Zdruli 2004:
43).
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