Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s project in Zvërnec and Sazan has become the subject of widespread discussion in the international media. The article published by the Financial Times, with the ironic title “Albania’s flamingos face off against the Trump family bulldozers,” places Albania at the center of a complex debate combining economic development, environmental protection and property rights.
The British newspaper analyzes the growing tensions, focusing on civic protests and activists’ concerns over irreversible damage to the ecosystem of the Narta lagoon, an important flamingo habitat.
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The article also reflects the complaints of residents, who claim their land was unlawfully transferred.
FT reports that work on the ground, which had begun in May, appears to have been suspended following the wave of protests known as the “Flamingo Revolution.”
While residents express fear over the consequences of opposing the project, representatives of the investors insist their goal remains the creation of a world-class destination, promising that the future of the project will depend on the decision of Albania and the Albanian people.
The full article from FT:
“Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are planning a luxury residential complex that local residents say threatens a nature reserve. Green hills descend toward a lagoon of bright blue water. Pelicans hunt fish. In the distance, flocks of pink flamingos can be seen. For two decades, this part of the Albanian coast has been a treasured nature reserve for migratory birds, one of the last wild areas on the Adriatic.
Then it attracted the attention of developers: Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who first saw it five years ago while sailing past it on a friend’s yacht. Today, a new road cuts through the untouched landscape.
The hills have been torn open by machinery, while the ground is covered with uprooted plants and broken branches. At least one large marsh area has been drained and flattened, filled with truck tracks. The concern of many Albanians is that the flamingos may leave and never return.
Construction of the planned luxury complex began in May, triggering major protests in Tirana in what has now been dubbed the ‘Flamingo Revolution’.
The spark that ignited the protests was a video showing a local resident being forcibly dragged away by private guards from the newly fenced-off area.
Since that day, protesters have gathered every evening for nearly a month, chanting that Albania’s land is not for sale. They are also calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, known for his direct style and his goal of taking Albania into the European Union, backed a sudden legal change in 2024 that allowed construction for tourism purposes in protected areas, provided the projects were in the ‘5 stars or higher’ category.
Only about two weeks after that change took effect, Jared Kushner published online renderings of the project for the coast of Zvërnec, showing development on the protected peninsula.
A visionary 97-page master plan, drafted in November 2025, provides for the construction of:
hotels;
villas;
hundreds of apartments;
commercial areas;
a golf course;
a water park;
tennis courts;
a casino;
as well as more than 700,000 square meters of built area and 70,000 square meters of underground logistics facilities.
A section of the unique lagoon, home to thousands of flamingos and classified by an Albanian state agency as a ‘Natural Monument,’ is earmarked in this document for the construction of a marina and yacht club.
The master plan was drafted by the architectural studio Laboratory for Visionary Architecture and was published online last month by a journalist who did not respond to the Financial Times’ request for comment.
A spokesperson for Laboratory for Visionary Architecture said:
“The document circulating is in fact a preliminary study prepared by our office, one of several studies carried out for the Sazan Peninsula, as the document itself indicates.”
For its part, Edi Rama’s government has said that this master plan was reviewed and rejected, while a new plan is being drafted and will be subject to a thorough environmental impact assessment.
The project developers, an investment worth around 2 billion euros led by Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, in partnership with Albania’s Kastrati Group and Qatar-based Assets Group, owned by two billionaire brothers of Syrian origin, said that “no conclusions should be drawn based on individual consulting contracts or preliminary planning materials.” They insist the project will respect the environment. But local residents and environmental activists argue that this is impossible.
“They talk about protecting the environment… but they are building a city,” said Joni Vorpsi, a representative of the nongovernmental organization Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania.
“This is the wildest part of the Adriatic. Sea turtles breed here. It is one of the most magical places we have… and the damage is already significant,” Vorpsi told the Financial Times during a visit to the area.
After the protests erupted in Tirana, the works appear to have stopped. Last week, no trucks, construction materials or workers were seen on site, while the new fence surrounding the area had been removed.
The European Parliament, which plays a role in Albania’s European Union accession process, called in mid-June for a moratorium on all new construction and permits in protected areas, as well as the repeal of the legal amendment allowing ‘5-star’ tourism construction in such zones.
For Marjana Koceku, a 25-year-old lawmaker in Tirana, the protests show an important shift in the way the younger generation of Albanians sees its own country. After the fall of the communist regime in 1991, Albania experienced mass emigration, but that phenomenon has begun to slow. According to Koceku, many members of the diaspora have also returned to Tirana to join the protests.
“Our parents raised us with the idea that happiness lay beyond the borders,” Koceku said.
“But the protests are showing that Albanians are seeing their land as a place where they should live, and not as a place they should leave.”
Marjana Koceku’s own story reflects this change. Raised in an isolated mountain village in northern Albania that could only be reached by boat, she left for Italy to study.
She later returned to Albania to develop a sustainable tourism project on her family’s property before entering politics.
Last month, Koceku left Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party over the project on the coast of Zvërnec, becoming the only independent MP in Albania’s Parliament.
Since then, she says she has received threats. In addition to the project on the coast of Zvërnec, the investors have also planned a similarly sized investment for the development of another complex on Sazan Island, Albania’s only island, which lies opposite the coast and the protected lagoon. In a recently released podcast, Ivanka Trump described Sazan as:
“A beautiful and private island in the middle of the Mediterranean… We were on a friend’s boat and stopped to swim… that’s how we discovered it.” Although the project on Sazan has raised less concern among environmentalists than the one in Zvërnec, people familiar with the area say any plan to develop the island is unrealistic.
Sazan is a small island with no permanent inhabitants. Its strategic position meant that for many years it was used as a military base. Even today it is filled with abandoned military buildings, bunkers and tunnels.
Another danger is unexploded mines under water. “When the wind blows on the island, its speed can easily reach 60, 90, even more than 100 kilometers per hour. We can barely stay on our feet. There is nowhere to shelter,” said Artur Mecollari, a former commander of the Albanian Navy, born into a military family and raised first on Sazan and later on the coast opposite it. He said that in 2008 he took part in searches for leftover ammunition in one part of the island and believes the danger still exists.
“As for drinking water, we drilled down to 3,500 meters and found nothing,” he said. “I don’t really believe Kushner will come… I think he has no idea what this island represents. Sazan cannot be developed. That is my assessment.”
A spokesperson for Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, the company developing the project in Albania, said the company’s goal is to create “a world-class destination,” based on “careful design, responsible environmental stewardship and long-term economic opportunity.”
Asher Abehsera, the company’s chairman, told the Financial Times that the project “is designed to bring long-term environmental, social and economic value to Albania, while respecting and preserving the country’s extraordinary natural heritage.”
He added that an environmental impact assessment is currently being prepared. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Prime Minister Edi Rama said the project on the coast of Zvërnec would benefit the nature reserve by cleaning the polluted lagoon, restoring damaged water channels and making the area “20 to 25 per cent greener.”
“If you think you are protecting nature simply by not touching it, you are making a very big mistake,” Rama said.
“You are not thinking about regeneration.”
Joni Vorpsi, the representative of the environmental organization, disagrees with that position.
He referred to a 2024 report by a Vienna-based consultancy specializing in rivers and wetlands, which described the Vjosa area as “extraordinary” for its hydromorphological integrity.
However, the project is opposed not only by environmentalists. Ownership of the land where the construction is planned is also the subject of a legal battle that has lasted for more than a decade. On a small hill overlooking the flamingo lagoon, residents of the village of Zvërnec grow figs, olives and tend to their gardens.
They insist that the land where the luxury complex is expected to be built belongs to their families and was granted to them after the fall of the communist regime.
“In 1991, we were given the land that had belonged to our parents,” said village head Kostaq Konomi, showing documents that he says prove his family, like many others, received a small plot.
But more than a decade later, residents say they discovered that the cadastral office had quietly issued competing ownership documents for the same land in the name of businessman Artur Shehu.
Albanian prosecutors have recently issued an arrest warrant for Artur Shehu and several other businessmen suspected of involvement in international drug trafficking and money laundering through real estate investments in Albania.
The residents of Zvërnec also suspect corruption behind the transfer of ownership of their land. One of the protesters in Tirana described the land ownership issue as “the country’s deepest open wound.”
A spokesperson for Sazan Real Estate Development LLC said:
“We continue to believe that the land acquisitions were carried out lawfully and in accordance with applicable procedures.” Kushner and his business partners withdrew last year from the project to build a Trump hotel in Serbia after the project faced strong public backlash and investigations in the country uncovered legal problems.
Asked whether the project in Albania could face the same fate, the company spokesperson replied: “Its future will ultimately be determined by Albania and the Albanian people.” A spokesperson for Jared Kushner declined to comment, while representatives of Ivanka Trump did not respond to requests for comment.
Neither Kastrati Group nor Assets Group, the Qatar-based company, responded to the Financial Times’ requests. A resident of Zvërnec said she cannot understand how her family’s land, for which she has paid taxes for many years, could have been sold to foreign investors by someone else for the construction of an exclusive complex.
“If you want development, why not build it… somewhere that can be enjoyed by both the rich and the poor,” she said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of possible consequences from the government. When Ivanka Trump visited Zvërnec together with her architects in January, residents saw a large motorcade of SUVs and police cars.
“Powerful people can do whatever they want,” said village elder Kostaq Konomi.
