The destruction of Albania’s Vjosa Narta ecosystem is not fake news as claimed by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. It’s a reality. I know because I was there when it started.
On May 7, the streets of Tirana were quiet. BirdLife International partner Protection and Conservation of the Albanian Natural Environment (PPNEA) was hosting 19 conservation experts from European BirdLife partners for its annual conference. We took a colleague to the Villosa delta, the last free-flowing delta in the Mediterranean. It is also a sanctuary for more than 200 bird species, including flamingos, Dalmatian pelicans, nesting loggerhead sea turtles, and the endangered Mediterranean monk seal. We thought we were there to inspect an airport built in open disregard of the law in the middle of a swamp.
To our horror, we walked straight into a vast new construction site in the heart of the reserve. We saw excavators tearing up the coast. Trucks dump gravel and cut roads through ancient dunes and pine forests. Training while working on a hillside. There are no licenses listed, no company names listed, and no environmental permits of any kind.
We acted quickly. The next morning, May 8th, I wrote to the Prime Minister and Minister for the Environment, warning of serious and partially irreparable damage. We have alerted the European Commission, the EU delegation in Tirana and the press.
PPNEA, the country’s oldest environmental NGO, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary, took the lead. A protest was first held at the site on May 15th, then outside the Ministry of Environment on May 26th, and again on May 30th with local residents. At the time of the third protest, the site was surrounded by barbed wire and security guards were cracking down on demonstrators. A video of the man being dragged away went viral. Within days, the story went global, highlighting the scale of the potential corruption as media linked the desecration to a massive real estate scheme backed by US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
This is bigger than a bird. Protected wetlands belong to everyone. This is not an asset that the government can sell behind closed doors to foreign billionaires. What is happening in Vijosa Narta is a more fundamental test of whether Albanian institutions exist to serve the people or to serve the trade. Albania wants to join the European Union, a club of rules built on the premise that governments are accountable to their people and that laws mean something. Vjosa-Narta is a stress test based on exactly that premise.
Now, as hundreds of thousands of protesters fill the streets of Tirana, the world is watching. The bulldozers were withdrawn, the fences were removed, and Narta’s lagoon was reconnected to the sea. good. However, flattened dunes, felled forests, and gravel poured over sand do not repair themselves. A tactical retreat that allows sabotage to resume once the cameras are turned off is not enough.
For this story to truly end, the damage must be undone and the future of the site secured.
The law itself is beginning to waver. As reported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Albania’s Special Prosecution against Corruption and Organized Crime froze the assets of the Kushner-backed landholding company behind the scheme. This is part of a growing property fraud investigation into the $4 billion resort. Public protests promote the rule of law and must follow due process.
Yes, social media algorithms are amplifying malicious posts that convey anti-Semitic filth and wild conspiracies. None of that changes what I saw. The images are from my phone and from my colleagues from 19 countries. We include eminent law professors, Europe’s best ornithologists, and dedicated conservationists with decades of experience. Our faces are not hidden, our names are known, and our hands are clean. We are not bots or foreign agents.
No, Prime Minister Rama, you are not facing an asymmetric war by Albania’s enemies. You are faced with the facts. And when you deny them, people get angry. Birds know no borders, and neither do we. If you abide by the law and build an economy that protects rather than exploits our people’s natural heritage, you will find honest partners in PPNEA and Birdlife. We look forward to meeting you in person. Until then, we will continue to adhere to the facts that are in our DNA and continue to speak out against nature.
