The "flamingos' revolution": Albania stands up to the tourist investment that threatens the country's biodiversity

TiranaThousands of Albanians are occupying streets and beaches across the country to protest against tourist investments that have taken over the entire coast and threaten its biodiversity. A flamingo-shaped float is passed from hand to hand in the center of Tirana. Other flamingos are also seen in different formats: posters, flyers, badges, and even on sugar packets. Thousands of Albanians display the image of this bird in one way or another, which has become the symbol of what is the largest environmental mobilization recorded in Albania in recent years. This is why the movement has been dubbed “the flamingo revolution,” in reference to this bird that inhabits the protected landscape of Vjosa–Narta, one of the country's most important natural areas, and which developments linked to luxury tourism threaten.

"I'm going out to protest because I don't want them to keep building like this; I don't want to live in an Albania where Albanians don't have access to their own beaches," says Arnold, a young archaeologist of thirty-one, on his way to the protest called in the center of Tirana. These mobilizations have begun to attract international attention due to the involvement of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in one of the most controversial tourist projects in the Balkan country.

Through the firm Affinity Partners, Kushner is promoting two major developments: a resort in the protected area of Zvërnec and another on the island of Sazan, a former strategic military base used by successive regimes —Italian, Soviet, and Albanian communist— whose entrance was restricted for decades. The project, valued at around 1.4 billion euros, plans to transform the island into a luxury tourist complex with hotels, villas, a marina, and other infrastructure for high-net-worth visitors.

The current mobilization gained momentum last weekend when a video went viral showing security personnel dragging a protester during a demonstration in Zvërnec. The images caused an outcry that multiplied attendance at subsequent rallies in Tirana. "This video was a clear example of how the 'oligarchy state' works here in Albania and what made me take to the streets," denounces Arnold.

For weeks, protests have been taking place in Zvërnec due to the start of construction of a tourist macrocomplex in the Pishë Poro–Narta area, integrated within the protected landscape of Vjosa–Narta, an area of high ecological value, habitat for flamingos, pelicans, and other migratory birds. Residents and activists question the legality of the permits granted and the lack of transparency in the process.

A long-term plan

The issue of tourist investment in Albania, which has led people to take to the streets, does not begin or end with Donald Trump's son-in-law. In Rrjoll, on the country's northern coast, residents have been in dispute with authorities and tourism developers for years, denouncing irregular expropriations and land appropriations linked to luxury hotel projects promoted under the guise of “strategic investment”.

The cases of Sazan Island, Zvërnec, or Rjoll show how Edi Rama's executive has opted to make luxury tourism one of the country's main economic drivers. The prime minister himself has repeatedly defended this model, presenting it as a way to attract foreign investment, increase Albania's international visibility, and position the country among high-level Mediterranean destinations.

Tourism has become one of the most dynamic sectors of the Albanian economy. The country received more than 11 million international visitors in 2024, an extraordinary figure for a state of just 2.4 million inhabitants, and the government plans to continue increasing these numbers through large hotel and urban development investments on the Adriatic and Ionian coasts.

Thus, in 2024, the government amended a law to allow construction in protected natural areas. With the new text, the National Territorial Council —a state body that does not include public consultation in its decision-making process— gained authority over activities within protected areas and their use for the construction of accommodation facilities. “The added amendments give municipalities control over 20% of protected areas, through which they can authorize —without any control— any construction as long as it is intended for ‘high-level’ tourism, meaning five-star hotels and anything that involves attracting more people to these types of facilities,” explains Valeria Parracino, an environmental activist from the Italian Lay Centre for Missions (CELIM). “This law permits everything,” she says.

With the approval of these amendments, obstacles to the construction of Vlorë International Airport were overcome, located within the Vjosa-Narta valley, the construction of which began in 2021. By this law, the delta, which is part of the protected landscape of Pishë-Poro-Nartë, was excluded from the Vjosa Wild River National Park, while the area where Vlorë International Airport is being built was completely removed from the map of protected areas. In this way, the Vjosa was declared protected as a river, but its delta, where flamingos rest, remains exposed to the pressures arising from the airport construction and mass tourism projects.

Now, after several years in which Rama's government has favored tourist investment to the detriment of the natural areas of its own country, Albanians have decided that enough is enough, that their land "is not for sale".