The destruction of Albania’s Vjosa-Narta ecosystem is not the fake news that Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama claims. It is reality. I know, because I was there when it started.On May 7, the streets of Tirana were quiet. Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA), a partner of BirdLife International, was hosting 19 conservation experts from European BirdLife Partners for our annual conference. We took our colleagues to the Vjosa delta, the last free-flowing river delta in the Mediterranean, and a refuge for more than 200 bird species, including flamingos and Dalmatian pelicans, nesting loggerhead sea turtles and the critically endangered Mediterranean monk seal. We thought we had come to inspect an airport built in open defiance of the law in the middle of the marshes.To our horror, we walked straight into a vast new construction site in the very heart of the protected area. We saw excavators tearing up the beach. Lorries dumping gravel and cutting roads through ancient dunes and pine forest. A drill at work on the hillside. No licences posted, no companies named, no environmental permit of any kind.We acted at once. I wrote to the prime minister and his environment minister the next morning, on May 8, warni …
