Quercus cerris, the Turkey oak, is an oak species native to southern central and southeastern Europe, extending into southwestern Asia. It is present in a large extent in the forests of the Republic of Kosovo, and at present used mainly for bio-energy. The potential use of Quercus cerris wood for construction and higher value wood products has been investigated in the last years. However limited information is available on wood characteristics and performance, mainly regarding chemical composition and durability. The heartwood of Quercus cerris taken from 70-90 year-old trees grown in two sites in Kosovo was studied regarding resistance to termite attack, chemical composition and hardness. The heartwood contained only 6,7% extractives, with a small content of tannins. The wood density was on average 0,81 at 12% moisture content and Brinell hardness 36,2 MPa. It was classified as not durable against subterranean termites and therefore not suitable for external use in ground contact in termite areas unless adequately protected. Nevertheless, Quercus cerris wood showed adequate hardness and density for interior uses like flooring for domestic and commercial applications with moderate use.

No abstract

The increased demand for fuelwood may have the side-effect of unsustainable use of forest resource. The case of Kosovo fuelwood production is of a peculiar relevance to studying the drivers of the unsustainable patterns of forest biomass use in a postwar and poor economic context. The domestic market demand for fuelwood in Kosovo is estimated at more than 1.5 hm 3 , while the legal supply, including imports, is slightly higher than 0.3 hm 3. Illegal logging for satisfying Kosovo population fuelwood needs is therefore widespread. The annual illegal fuelwood harvesting represents a market of up to 21.6 million euro and is done mostly by well organised groups of individuals, with market-oriented behaviour, acting rather in State than in private forests. After identifying the drivers of illegal logging for fuelwood, the paper provides an analysis of fuelwood extraction in relation with property rights distribution, structured along two lines: a) which was the evolution of the management and exclusion rights over the forest resource during the latest decades; b) which are the current enforcement mechanisms of the property rights and how are they performing. The paper describes a decades-long history of mismatching economic property rights arrangements. Thus, the dispute between the central agency and municipalities in performing exclusion rights on timber extraction definitely weakened the Kosovo system of law enforcement. Currently, the enforcement mechanism proved to be unhelpful in controlling illegal logging. As result, most of the Kosovo fuelwood production is based on an de facto open-access regime.

• Kosovo, located in the heart of the Balkans, was formerly a part of Yugoslavia. The breakup of

The smart grid promises to enable novel energy services, supporting a greater integration of renewable energy sources. Major issues in this context are data protection and privacy risks, wherein malicious actors or organizations misuse personal data that is collected, processed and stored to enable these services. To address this problem, the European Commission has proposed a risk-driven process to data protection impact assessment. In this article, we introduce this process and present a tool that can support its implementation.