{"id":26453,"date":"2025-04-23T09:01:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26453"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:24:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:24:52","slug":"jared-kushner-targets-albanias-adriatic-coast-for-luxury-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26453","title":{"rendered":"Jared Kushner Targets Albania\u2019s Adriatic Coast for Luxury Tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The bright waters of the Narta lagoon mirrored the sky \u2014 until a massive white bird soared in from the Adriatic, skimming the surface with its dangling feet. \u201cIt\u2019s a Dalmatian pelican,\u201d my guide, Julian Hoffman, said.<\/p>\n

It was my first time seeing the pelican in the wild, and I laughed with the joy of it. My introduction to the bird had come through a print by Edward Lear<\/a>, the 19th-century naturalist and painter, that hung in my grandparents\u2019 house. With its exaggerated bill and cap of fluffy feathers, it looked like a happy-go-lucky cartoon character to my childhood self \u2014 except for its eyes, which seemed sorrowful and questioning.<\/p>\n

The pelican slowed to a splashy stop. Soon it was joined by other birds: greater flamingos, gray herons, Eurasian spoonbills, a flock of little egrets. The creatures preened and fished, squawked and chortled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A thin strip of land separates the Narta lagoon, on the left, and the Adriatic at the site of one of Mr. Kushner\u2019s proposed projects.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mr. Hoffman and I were walking a sandy road in southwestern Albania, between the sparkling radiance of the Adriatic Sea and the Narta lagoon, a place prized by birders<\/a> for its rich avian diversity. Our destination was a headland that would afford us a view of the 59,000-acre Vjosa River delta, which encompasses the lagoon as well as sand dunes, forests, salt pans and fishing villages. The delta is home to myriad plant and animal species, some of whose populations are dwindling, like the Dalmatian pelican. When Lear made his painting of the bird, the species was already declining because of hunting and habitat loss. Today it\u2019s listed as \u201cnear threatened\u201d<\/a> by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and in Albania specifically as \u201ccritically endangered\u201d<\/a> by the Ministry of Tourism and Environment \u2014 \u201cwhich is why places like this delta are indispensable to its survival,\u201d Mr. Hoffman said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I\u2019d traveled to the delta to see a place renowned for its wildness \u2014 before its wildness is muted. In 2021, crews broke ground on the Narta lagoon\u2019s northern end to build a new international airport, part of a broader effort to expand tourism in the region. The project continues today, despite opposition from national and international nongovernmental organizations and repeated calls<\/a> to suspend construction from the Council of Europe\u2019s Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The bright waters of the Narta lagoon mirrored the sky \u2014 until a massive white bird soared in from the Adriatic, skimming the surface with its dangling feet. \u201cIt\u2019s a Dalmatian pelican,\u201d my guide, Julian Hoffman, said.It was my first time seeing the pelican in the wild, and I laughed with the joy of it. My introduction to the bird had come through a print by Edward Lear, the 19th-century naturalist and painter, that hung in my grandparents\u2019 house. With its exaggerated bill and cap of fluffy feathers, it looked like a happy-go-lucky cartoon character to my childhood self \u2014 except for its eyes, which seemed sorrowful and questioning.The pelican slowed to a splashy stop. Soon it was joined by other birds: greater flamingos, gray herons, Eurasian spoonbills, a flock of little egrets. The creatures preened and fished, squawked and chortled.A thin strip of land separates the Narta lagoon, on the left, and the Adriatic at the site of one of Mr. Kushner\u2019s proposed projects.Mr. Hoffman and I were walking a sandy road in southwestern Albania, between the sparkling radiance of the Adriatic Sea and the Narta lagoon, a place prized by birders for its rich avian diversity. Our destination was a headland that would afford us a view of the 59,000-acre Vjosa River delta, which encompasses the lagoon as well as sand dunes, forests, salt pans and fishing villages. The delta is home to myriad plant and animal species, some of whose populations are dwindling, like the Dalmatian pelican. When Lear made his painting of the bird, the species was already declining because of hunting and habitat loss. Today it\u2019s listed as \u201cnear threatened\u201d by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and in Albania specifically as \u201ccritically endangered\u201d by the Ministry of Tourism and Environment \u2014 \u201cwhich is why places like this delta are indispensable to its survival,\u201d Mr. Hoffman said.I\u2019d traveled to the delta to see a place renowned for its wildness \u2014 before its wildness is muted. In 2021, crews broke ground on the Narta lagoon\u2019s northern end to build a new international airport, part of a broader effort to expand tourism in the region. The project continues today, despite opposition from national and international nongovernmental organizations and repeated calls to suspend construction from the Council of Europe\u2019s Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26455,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26456,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26453\/revisions\/26456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}