Protests in Albania are growing over a massive coastal resort project linked to Jared Kushner, as activists challenge a development now moving from promise to machinery on the ground. Since late May, excavators and other heavy equipment have entered the area, cutting access routes, digging into sand and clearing land among pine trees at a site that campaigners say should never have been opened to construction.
The project has become a flashpoint because it sits in a wildlife reserve and one of Albania’s most valuable biodiversity areas, while the government describes it as transformational. The luxury plan includes hotels, apartments, villas and a marina, with one part set for the Narta Lagoon area and another on the uninhabited island of Sazan. Protest groups fear that sections of Albania’s pristine coastline could be snapped up by powerful investors, and public anger surged after video showed an activist being dragged by a private security guard during a demonstration at the site.
Ivanka Trump added to the focus this week when she told U.S. podcaster David Senra that she and Kushner found the place by accident. “We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it,” she said, adding, “We swam to the island. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated.” Her account has sharpened attention on a plan that now has special investor status from Albanian authorities and is advancing in a country with 450 kilometers of coast that remained largely underdeveloped during decades of harsh communist rule.
That history helps explain why the government is pushing the resort as a way for Albania to enter the high-end tourism market and support its bid for European Union membership. But the same coastline is also a key stopover for migratory birds along the Adriatic, and the site includes Sazan, an abandoned island that once served as a communist-era military base. For now, the central question is whether approvals and construction decisions will let the project keep moving, or whether the growing resistance around Albania protests will force a delay or a change in course.
