Ivanka Trump plans a luxury resort on a protected beach. Locals and conservationists aren’t thrilled
By Lauren Kent, CNN
(CNN) — In a slickly produced podcast interview published this week, Ivanka Trump talked about her latest real-estate project – what she described as an “unbelievable, beautiful 1,400-hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean” plus five beautiful miles of Albanian beachfront intended to become resorts and hotels.
But the project backed by the US president’s daughter and son-in-law Jared Kushner includes planned development of a protected natural area along the coast across from the island, which conservation groups say has already damaged the beautiful area Trump was praising.
The luxury venture has sparked large street protests in the capital, Tirana, where demonstrators carried pink cardboard cutouts of the flamingos whose habitat they say is being threatened, and a broader backlash from citizens in Albania, which has one of the lowest rates of GDP per capita in Europe.
The Europe director for environmental charity BirdLife, Ariel Brunner, said he and other conservationists visited the nature site in early May, where they saw excavators digging up the beach and trucks laying gravel. “There was no sign whatsoever, neither by the lagoon where they were cutting the road, nor on the beach where the machinery was working… there were no signs of any kind of license or permits or even just declaration of who they were.”
Meanwhile, Albania’s prime minister has insisted the project has not actually begun yet and its “environment impact is being worked on,” as he continues to champion development of the country’s Adriatic coast.
What we know about the project so far
The first component of the project – the uninhabited Sazan Island – is a former communist-era military base.
“We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim, effectively, that’s how we found it. We swam to the islands, we went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated,” Trump told US-based podcaster David Senra earlier this week, bringing the project to the attention of many in Albania and beyond.
The second site – an undeveloped stretch of beach called Pishë Poro-Narta – sits within a protected nature area, the Vjosa–Narta Protected Landscape. It’s home to endangered species like monk seals, nesting sea turtles and more than 200 bird species, including flamingos and pelicans.
CNN reached out to Jared Kushner’s private equity fund about the project, but was redirected to a different company, Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, and told that investors are involved in their personal capacity.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to create a world-class destination and make one of the largest private investments in the region’s history. Our focus remains on responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation, and creating long-term value for local communities,” Asher Abehsera, chairman of Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, said in a statement. “We respect the ongoing public and institutional processes, and we stand ready to move forward as they unfold.”
Kushner told an investment summit last year that while he was sailing off the coast of Albania in 2021, Prime Minister Edi Rama came onto the boat for a meeting, and a year later they discussed investment opportunities. In 2024, Kushner posted concept art for the Albanian coast project on social media.
Critics have repeatedly raised concerns about Kushner’s private business dealings presenting a conflict of interest, given he now serves as a special envoy of his father-in-law, President Donald Trump. He has received significant backing from sovereign wealth funds of countries that he also conducts official government business with, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
On Wednesday, Rama confirmed that Kushner and Ivanka Trump are involved in the venture, but said it includes a broader group of investors and architects from Japan, Denmark, Turkey, Greece and France.
Rama also claimed that “there is not a project yet,” and “the environmental impact is being worked on,” when asked by CNN’s Isa Soares whether real-estate development on the island and nature reserve is ongoing.
“There is not such a thing like the family of the American president taking over protected areas where flamingos will be, will be killed by them,” Rama said, adding that the developers’ group has hired a consulting firm to look into the environmental impact.
The prime minister insisted the project will not “pour concrete on the head of flamingos,” but rather prove that development and nature “can coexist.”
Earlier this week, Albania’s special anti-corruption prosecution office, SPAK, told local media it had opened an investigation related to the project but did not provide further details. CNN has reached out to SPAK for comment but did not receive a response.
Controversial change to nature laws
Part of the backlash in Albania surrounds a change to the country’s nature laws to permit luxury resort construction within environmentally protected areas, implemented in 2024. The law now exempts “structures of excellence, 5 stars or more” and related hospitality activities.
“Usually, the fact that rich people can get away with what they want to do is something that you hide under a kind of language of public interest, extraordinary situations, and so on. Actually writing in the law that luxury resorts are exempt is quite remarkable,” said BirdLife’s Brunner. “This is one of the most brutal legislative texts I’ve seen in the environmental field in my career.”
The legal change does not jibe with European Union law, which has been a sticking point as Albania undertakes talks to join the EU.
“We have already expressed our concerns to the minister of the environment about the potential shortcomings of this project,” a European Commission spokesperson told CNN regarding the development in the Pishë Poro-Narta protected landscape. “Our concerns are not new… (Albania’s) repeated extension of the law on strategic investments continues to raise concerns about possible environmental impacts, particularly in protected areas.”
Nature conservation groups say they believe the Albanian government intends to push this development and other smaller projects through before changing nature laws back to comply with EU regulations.
The European Commission spokesperson told CNN that Albania’s environment ministry had “committed that the construction works have been suspended.” The spokesperson also noted that the SPAK anti-corruption investigations “reportedly extend beyond environmental concerns.”
CNN has reached out to Albania’s Ministry of Environment and its National Agency of Protected Areas for comment.
What protesters are saying
Conservationists and ordinary citizens have been railing against the project for weeks, asking to see permits and calling on lawmakers to help protect the wild coastline.
“The project is quite destructive, since it’s actually planned to be built within a protected area, within a protected landscape, which is actually one of the most intact wetlands in the Mediterranean,” Melitjan Nezaj, an environmental biologist at the Albanian organization Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA), told CNN. “As we speak now, there are no permissions publicly available.”
PPNEA said in a statement that some of the ecological damage to sand dunes is “already irreversible,” and that construction has “blocked one of the two openings connecting the Narta Lagoon to the sea, cutting off tidal exchange with immediate, cascading consequences for fish, birds, and the entire food chain.”
Protesters have demonstrated at the protected area – outside newly constructed fences – carrying signs featuring pink flamingos and loggerhead sea turtles. Environmental groups have also documented heavy machinery on the beach, a drill placed on a hill and patrolling security guards, although it’s unclear if those are connected to the Kushner-backed development.
Large protests also took place in the capital on multiple days this week, where citizens chanted that “Albania is not for sale.”
BirdLife told CNN that it’s not opposed to all development of the coastline, arguing that other areas with abandoned buildings or previous urban development would be good candidates for revitalization.
“Some types of nature can coexist with some types of development; transforming an entire island and river delta into a de-facto city cannot,” Brunner said. “If you physically remove the habitat, anything that lives in that habitat will disappear.”
Because environmental groups and the media have not seen permits or planning documents for the project, it’s hard to know exactly how many buildings are planned and on which parts of the protected area. But in her podcast interview, Ivanka Trump emphasized the project’s huge scale.
“We’ll have hotels and resorts and wellness, all of it – it’s almost daunting in its size,” she said, later adding that “community” was at the heart of it. “You can’t just, like, impose yourself upon a country or culture – you have to understand it first to do it in a beautiful and delicate and meaningful way.”
CNN’s Vasco Cotovio, Isa Soares and Olivia Briand contributed to this report.
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