Tourism boom at the expense of nature

PRESS RELEASE

Albania official guest country at ITB

Albania: Beautiful appearance, but nature is being destroyed

Albania is the official guest country at this year’s ITB tourism trade fair in Berlin. The small country on the Adriatic Sea attracts visitors with its breathtaking landscapes, but many areas that are valuable for nature conservation are being sacrificed for tourism.

Berlin, Radolfzell, Tirana. The tourism trade fair in Berlin is supposed to focus on sustainability. However, Albania, of all countries, is the official guest country at ITB and is focusing on luxury and mass tourism instead of sustainable ecotourism. Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Minister of Tourism and Environment, Mirela Kumbaro, will open the ITB on Monday, 3 March. They will likely not only highlight Albania’s magnificent landscapes and rich cultural heritage but also emphasise that Albania is a pioneer in nature tourism. Indeed, in March 2023, after years of campaigning by EuroNatur and its partners in the Blue Heart campaign, the government in Tirana designated the Vjosa River and its tributaries as Europe’s first wild river national park.

However, the integrity of the national park is being threatened in several places. Several kilometres of pipes have already been laid along the Shushica, an essential tributary of the Vjosa, to divert the water from the Shushica to the Albanian coast. Moreover, work on the planned Vlora airport in the Vjosa Delta and in close proximity to the Narta Lagoon is also proceeding at full speed. For the construction of the airport, which is intended to attract many tourists to the south of Albania, new boundaries to an existing protected area were specially drawn as part of a highly controversial, possibly even illegal, change in the law – the construction area was ‘cut out’ of the protected zone. The airport project is in the middle of an important wetland for birds; EuroNatur and its Albanian partners are calling for it to be stopped, not only from an ecological point of view but also in terms of flight safety.

“The planned construction of the international Vlora airport right next to the Narta protected area is a clear sign of how the Albanian government is treating the country’s wilderness areas. These natural jewels are only being promoted to attract tourists,” says Zydjon Vorpsi from the Albanian nature conservation organisation PPNEA. “The disregard for national and international laws, the Bern Convention, the scientific community and European institutions is proof that the speeches of nature and ecotourism at international events such as the ITB is just a green façade that disguises the destruction of Albania’s unique natural environment,” says Vorpsi.

Albania recently attracted attention in terms of tourism when Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was granted a licence by the Albanian government to build a luxury resort on the unspoilt island of Sazan. “There is every indication that Edi Rama has no regard for nature in his announcement to make Albania a ‘tourism champion’,” says EuroNatur Executive Director Gabriel Schwaderer. “The water of unspoilt rivers is being dug up, valuable wetlands have to make way for airports, and the sell-off of the country’s last wild stretches of coastline has begun.” All of this should be borne in mind when Edi Rama and Mirela Kumbaro take to the stage at ITB to extol Albania’s touristic virtues.

Background information:

– The Narta Lagoon is located in the delta of the Vjosa River, directly on one of the last unspoilt parts of the Albanian Adriatic coast. The Vjosa gained great prominence in 2023: after ten years of campaigning by EuroNatur and its partner organisations Riverwatch and EcoAlbania, the river was proclaimed Europe’s first Wild River National Park and placed under protection by the Albanian government. At the same time, the construction of the Vlora airport was pushed ahead.

– The construction of the Vlora Airport in Albania has attracted considerable criticism from nature conservation organisations and EU institutions. The airport is being built in the protected Vjosa-Narta lagoon, one of the most important wetlands on the Adriatic. EuroNatur, PPNEA, and other nature conservation organisations and institutions such as the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention, the most important European nature conservation agreement, are calling for the construction work to be suspended. They argue that the construction jeopardises the lagoon’s sensitive ecosystem. The European Commission and the European Parliament have also repeatedly expressed concerns. They emphasise that the construction violates national and international environmental laws and are calling for a new environmental impact assessment. Please find more information in the EuroNatur Biodiversity Report on the Western Balkans.

Image material: You are welcome to use the attached image material free of charge in connection with this press release, provided that the author of the image is credited. Available in print quality on request. Information on the images:

1) Albania is a country full of natural treasures, here the Vjosa. But the sell-out of the last wilderness spots has long since begun.

2) The hangar of the planned Vlora airport can already be seen. The construction site is now being worked on day and night.

3) The new airport seems to be just the prelude to a large-scale tourism initiative by the Albanian government in the south of the country. This unspoilt stretch of beach near Zvërnec has become the focus of Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.