site.btaWill Vlora Airport in Albania Lead to Ecological Disaster?

From 2021 onwards, Albania is building its third international airport in the southern coastal city of Vlora. Currently, there are two operating airports in Albania – one in Tirana, Albania’s capital, and another one in the north-eastern city of Kukes.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama described Vlora airport as ‘the largest airport in the Balkans and one of the most important investments in the country's economy’.

The construction is to be completed in 2025. The project is worth over EUR 100,000,000. The airport will occupy an area of 297 hectares and is expected to provide numerous jobs for locals, as well as to operate flights to and from the United States.

Despite all the positive signals about Albania’s growing tourism sector, the construction of the airport near the Narta lagoon provoked reactions from a number of environmental associations in Albania and there were attempts to stop the construction.

A two-and-a-half-hour drive south of Tirana, the Narta Lagoon and its marshes are home to more than 200 bird species, 33 of which are on the Red List of Threatened Species of Albanian flora and fauna, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

Albanian NGOs warn that the airport in the Vjosa-Narta protected area poses a serious threat to populations of pink flamingos, Dalmatian pelicans and other migratory species that nest or rest there.

The documentary "Stop the Airport!", which will be released in Albanian cinemas on June 28, is yet another attempt to prevent such consequences. The film describes the richness of the protected area where the airport is being built, and the battle to save it, Euronews Albania reports.

According to representatives of the Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania non-governmental organization, Vlora’s airport construction ‘marks the end of protected areas in Albania’. In their words, Albanian authorities have entered ‘into a competition with climate changes to see which side will damage the natural environment more’.

The Albanian government and local population argue that infrastructure is essential for tourism development and job creation in the country, as a lot of Albanians are fleeing poverty and unemployment, AFP also reports. The local government assures that the construction complies with all environmental rules and that birds would not be disturbed.

At end-March, 2023, Albanian Deputy Prime Minister Infrastructure and Energy Minister Belinda Balluku told Euronews Albania that there is no fauna at the construction site of the airport. In her words, an old airport had been built there in 1920.

"The airport will be built anyway. It does not pose a threat to the ecosystem in any way", Rama said as cited by AFP.

Earlier in 2023, the Associated Press news agency recalled that a 2022 EU report on Albania's progress said work on the airport began in December 2021 ‘in violation of state laws and already ratified international conventions protecting biodiversity’.

The fate of the half-finished Vlora international airport lies between Albania's prospects as a tourist destination and damaging one of the country's main assets – the integrity of its nature. An airport or an ecological disaster - a question to be decided.