By Ola Mitre, Aida Ciro, Kristi Bashmili and Nemanja Živaljević
In July 2025, bulldozers entered Theth and within a few days several constructions were demolished in the heart of the Albanian Alps, in an action that authorities described as a “restoring legal order”.
Only 1 year earlier, during the campaign for the parliamentary elections of June 30, Prime Minister Edi Rama encouraged residents to return to their tourist village, invest, and turn their lands into development opportunities. The promise was that generational properties would be provided with ownership documents and that the “Mountains Package” would be the instrument of return and prosperity for alpine areas.
“We will wave all fines for illegal construction in this area. You have built without permits because you have not had the possibility to obtain the land certificate that belongs to you,” Rama responded to the concerns of the residents of Theth, also announcing the plans for the adoption of the law.
“They told us to invest. Come back, build! And we built more easily than any other year because it was election time,” says Kristian Gurra, 27 years old.
Kristian has been running a family business in Theth for more than ten years. He started with a small café, while now he has 1 restaurant and 16 rooms for tourists, which support the family and several seasonal workers. The latest investment, intended for winter tourism, was financed with a bank loan of around 100 thousand euros, but was demolished during the July operation.
“Today I pay the loan every month and I also have a fine. I put my house in Shkodra up as collateral because I don’t have a title deed here,” he says.
His case is typical for northern areas in Albania, where lands are inherited generation after generation without title deeds, a historical problem that institutions have never solved. The “Mountains Package”, approved in March 2025, aims to bypass this deadlock by giving residents the possibility to build and develop property even in the absence of a clear ownership title.
But the demolition action, undertaken immediately after the adoption of the law, struck precisely what this “package” claims to support: residents’ investments in their inherited properties.
Meanwhile, data show that the legal architecture favors large tourism and energy investments, far from the promised family model, not excluding the “Albanian Alps” Park, a key territory for cross-border nature protection initiatives, part of the Dinaric Alps and the European Green Belt.
Moreover, the law also opens the way to the alienation of forests, pastures and meadows, allowing land-use change from natural to urban or industrial use, which not only weakens the protection of natural resources but undermines the ecological function of the territory itself. Experts warn that the approach of the Albanian law risks irreversible consequences for the alpine ecosystem and contradicts the principles of sustainable development, while the centralization of decision-making at central level opens the path for benefits to go to non-resident entities rather than local communities.
“The Mountains Package”
In its public presentation, the “Mountains Package” was introduced as an instrument to assist residents of mountainous areas who for decades have lived and invested on land without title deeds. The resolution of this problem was linked to the development of environmentally friendly agro-tourism structures, as well as to keeping communities in place at a time when many mountainous areas in Albania have been emptied by emigration.
The adopted law provides a series of mechanisms which, in appearance, aim to provide residents of mountainous areas with legal security and development opportunities. It allows individuals recognized as non-owner occupants, upon meeting certain criteria, to purchase state land at the symbolic price of 1 euro, to benefit from exemptions from certain taxes for a 10-year period, and to have simplified access to construction permits.
At the same time, however, the law has clearly included investors, as registered natural or legal persons, who are granted the right to implement investment projects in agreement with the non-owner possessor.
In addition, the adopted law creates full legal scope for large tourist and energy investments, as it stipulates that the competent authority for approving development and construction permits will be solely the National Territorial and Water Council (KKTU).
According to the law “On territorial planning and development”, the KKTU, an institution led by the Prime Minister, is the authority responsible for decision-making only for complex developments. This body approves development permits for strategic projects in the territory, from large tourist resorts to energy and infrastructure structures. The legislation also specifies that the KKTU may approve construction permits only for buildings higher than 6 floors.
These competences have no connection with the nature of agro-tourism or family guesthouses.
“Agro-tourism, by definition, refers to small initiatives developed by families and directly linked to the rural economy. It is rural tourism model closely connected to agriculture and village life, where tourist services support and complement existing agricultural activity without replacing or distorting the traditional function of the territory,” says Doriana Musai, lecturer in architecture and urban planning.
“Meanwhile, these investments classified as strategic come with investors and companies that favor high-cost investments. In short, agro-tourism is used as a legitimizing narrative of central policy, while the real result is intensive tourism detached from the social and economic structure of the area,” she adds.
Tourism experts also state that “the model of large resorts is not in line with the principles of local development and social inclusion”.
“It may bring investments and jobs, but it risks concentrating benefits among investors rather than local residents,” says Ardiola Alikaj, senior tourism expert in Albania.
At the same time, experts criticize the bypassing of municipalities in decision-making over developments in their territory, powers they hold under the current law for structures under six floors, including agro-tourism.
“The autonomy of local authorities and their territorial plans is undermined,” says Erjon Muharremaj, professor and expert in Public International Law, Environmental Law and EU Integration Processes.
According to Musai, “when project approval is carried out top-down, from the central level in an executive manner toward the local level, the principle of local development and subsidiarity is violated. The National Territorial and Water Council, as a governmental body, should ensure national planning coherence and not replace local authorities in decisions that directly affect communities and the local landscape,” she argues.
The Alps, a Development Zone
The “Mountains Package” is not applied across the entire mountainous territory, but only in those areas declared “priority development zones”, which are selected through a special procedure that begins at the local level and is finalized at the central level. The municipality collects applications from residents or identifies territories with “economic potential” and proposes them as zones that should be developed. Afterwards, the municipal report is sent to the minister responsible for local government, who decides whether the proposal meets the criteria to be taken further. The final decision is made by the Council of Ministers, which officially declares the zone, subsequently opening the way for project approvals.
The process as a whole has already been finalized for the Municipality of Shkodra, in whose territory five priority development zones have been approved, including the villages of Theth and Ndërlysaj, located within the “Albanian Alps” National Park on the border with Montenegro.
Interest in building within the priority zones has been extremely high, according to data from the Directorate of Territorial Planning and Development of the Municipality of Shkodra. Following a request for information, this directorate reported that by December 9, 2025, 642 applications had been submitted for the 5 typologies permitted by the system established for this purpose: Agro-tourism, green energy, livestock farming, social projects and the “other” typology, which leaves open any kind of investment request. The majority were related to agro-tourism (434), the “other” category had 136 applications, social projects 35, livestock 29 and green energy, meaning the construction of solar and wind parks, 14 applications.
However, although the initial interest mainly comes from local residents for agro-tourism projects, the legal architecture itself directs the process toward much larger developments requiring capital and central approval. This contrast becomes even sharper when such developments are targeted in protected areas, within one of the most sensitive ecosystems in the Balkans.
The Albanian Alps and Prokletije in Montenegro constitute one of the most important ecosystems in the region, known for the extraordinary biological diversity and fragile habitats. In addition to the national protection status, specific territories enjoy international recognition. The Alps are part of the EMERALD network (Areas of Special Conservation Interest for Europe), Theth is recognized as an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) and a Key Biodiversity Area (KBA), while the Gashi River, a strict nature reserve until 2022 and now part of the Alps Park, is part of the UNESCO Natural World Heritage.
Data from the National Agency of Protected Areas show a high number of habitats according to the Natura 2000 list, of conservation importance. In Theth and surrounding areas alone about 20 habitat types have been identified, of which 4 are priority. Likewise, in the Vermosh and Lëpushë-Budaç valley around 25 habitat types have been identified, of which 4 are priority; in the Valbona valley around 26 types, of which 4 priority; while in the Gashi River - Dobërdoll valley about 14 habitat types, of which 2 are priority and require specific conservation measures. The park also includes a rich flora with around 1,500 plant species, 40% of which are endemic to Albania, making them particularly sensitive to changes and possible developments. Beech, Macedonian pine, silver fir and alder are some of the flora species found in the area.
The fauna is equally rich. Water bodies and surrounding areas host rare and endangered species of fish, amphibians and reptiles; around 155 bird species and more than 60 mammals, including the Balkan lynx, bear, wolf, roe deer, otter, vulture, golden eagle and western capercaillie. A large part of them are listed in the Annexes of the Habitats Directive, the Birds Directive, in the IUCN and Albanian red lists, making this area critical for biodiversity conservation. On the Montenegrin side of Prokletije more than 2,000 plant species have also been identified, 60 of which protected and 161 bird species. Meanwhile, camera traps last year documented the presence of the lynx, one of the most endangered species in the Balkans.
This mountain massif functions as a single ecological node within the Dinaric Alps and the European Green Belt, making its protection a regional and European priority.
“Every intervention in Albania has an impact also in Montenegro and vice-versa,” says biologist and civic activist Vuk Iković, recalling that the area also includes the well-known cross-border trail “Peaks of the Balkans”.
However, although the ecological importance of the Balkan Alps is widely documented at national and international level, this did not prevent the Municipality of Shkodra and the Albanian government from including them in priority development zones.
At the same time, amendments to the instruction defining the procedure for declaring these zones show a clear departure from environmental protection standards. The first instruction, from June 2025, required the collection and analysis of socio-economic, environmental and geographical data. But only four months later, a new instruction repealed all these criteria, reducing the process to one based solely on the “economic, industrial or tourist potential of the area”. According to Professor Erjon Muharremaj, this rapid change and the shift from a 70-paragraph document to an instruction with only 30 paragraphs raises serious questions.
“To repeal such an important act after only four months, there should have been fundamental changes of circumstances. But even if there were reasons, the instruction should have been amended, not completely repealed,” he says.
“Subsequent legislation usually becomes more detailed. In fact, the opposite has happened, which generally does not indicate a will to improve the legislation, but suggests other reasons,” the expert adds.
Another concerning element of the law relates to the change of status of natural assets. For the first time, the “Mountains Package” opens the way to the alienation of categories that until now have been untouchable: forests, pastures and meadows. Article 8 of the law stipulates that these assets are no longer considered inalienable public property, allowing them to be subject to ownership transfer and development procedures. This means forest, pasture or meadow areas may lose their natural status and be easily transformed into urban, tourist or industrial zones, bypassing any territorial planning document that has also passed environmental filters.
“When areas or projects are declared ‘strategic’ they often bypass General Local Plans and Protected Area Management Plans, since the aim is to accelerate economic development by simplifying administrative procedures and centralizing decision-making,” says Musai. “This creates a parallel decision-making system, where long-term planning loses its weight and is reduced to a formality, where it is no longer the plan that guides development, but the opposite,” she further explains.
According to Muharremaj, these developments cannot be understood without also looking at the 2024 amendments to the law “On protected areas”, which significantly weaken the protection of the highest natural categories. The amendments allow urban developments and five-star tourist structures within national parks, even in the central sub-zone that theoretically should be a strictly protected area.
“These are the catastrophic consequences of the 2024 amendments,” he says.
He also criticizes the 2025 decision of the Constitutional Court, which rejected the request of environmental organizations to repeal the amendments.
“This regressive decision gives the executive a free hand to approve development or construction permits in protected areas,” the professor states.
Serious Consequences
The combination of priority development zones and the weakening of the environmental protection framework puts the ecological future of the Alps into question. Developments permitted within the park, without public consultations, Strategic Environmental Assessments, or verification of compliance with planning and management documents, create a real risk of habitat fragmentation, land-use change and the loss of the natural values that make this territory unique in the Balkans. The situation becomes even more concerning given that around 72% of the area declared for development overlaps with the Central B sub-zone of the “Albanian Alps” National Park, directly threatening the park’s ecological integrity and the conservation of flora and fauna species.
Potential negative impacts are not limited only within the administrative borders of the park, but affect biodiversity, species and habitats of interest to the EU, aquatic ecosystems and cross-border ecological corridors, as well as the objectives of international initiatives such as the Dinaric Alps and the European Green Belt. In this context, any uncontrolled development within the “Albanian Alps” National Park may compromise its ecological function and its role as a key node of biodiversity conservation in the region.
On the Montenegrin side, the Prokletije National Park is managed under strict criteria: constructions are limited and every project is subject to strong environmental and cross-border filters. But in Albania, the new law opens the way to large tourist and energy developments without any coordination process with the authorities of Montenegro, despite the fact that it concerns the same ecosystem.
“We have absolutely no information,” says the mayor of the Municipality of Gusinje, Sanel Balić.
“Everything that happens along the border should be communicated to the Montenegrin government and the municipalities bordering this area. Whatever is built there may affect us as well,” he emphasized.
Marinela Đuretić, director of the Public Enterprise of National Parks of Montenegro, was also not aware that Prokletije on the Albanian side might be under pressure from investors. She believes this is a complex issue requiring involvement at the state level.
The Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development did not respond on whether it is aware of Albania’s plans or whether it plans to contact counterparts in Tirana.
Unlike the Montenegrin authorities, Marija Lekić from the Center for Protection and Research of Birds (CZIP) is informed about the new legal developments in the neighboring country. Although the scale of projects is not known, Lekić emphasizes that there may be forest cutting, road construction and installation of transmission lines, activities that fall under the scope of the Espoo Convention.
She stresses that Albania, as a party since 1991, is obliged to notify neighboring states in time for projects that may have impacts beyond the border.
In Albania, the Ministry of Environment and the National Agency of Protected Areas did not respond to a request for comment, leaving unclear how national parks and ecological corridors will be protected from intensive developments.
Meanwhile, the National Environment Agency confirmed that it is not part of the process of defining priority development zones. In a written response, NEA said that its role begins only afterwards, at the Environmental Impact Assessment phase for individual projects.
Integration and Cross-border Projects, in Question
The double standard of protection for the Dinaric Alps risks not only nature, but also cross-border cooperation and access to European funds for joint projects. The Director of the Montenegrin Parks emphasizes that the EU does not support policies that allow construction in protected areas.
The European Commission Progress Report for Albania also raised concerns, assessing that the law “Mountains Package” “may have significant impacts on land use at local level and on environmental management”.
Based on personal experience and on this assessment of the European Commission, according to Professor Muharremaj, “the lack of willingness to implement environmental standards will be a serious obstacle on the path toward membership in the European Union”.
Residents of Theth, such as Kristian Gurra, view this reality with uncertainty.
“It is always something to be afraid of… we no longer understand what is happening. Residents are hesitant. There is a need for investments, but not in a climate where everything is unpredictable,” he says.
This feeling of insecurity on the ground coincides with the warnings of experts on both sides of the border, who fear possible negative impacts on the environment of the Balkan Alps and call for immediate reaction.
“Official Podgorica must react,” says biologist and civic activist Vuk Iković.
For senior tourism expert Ardiola Alikaj, “to avoid the scenario of irreversible consequences a careful approach is needed, one that places at the center the carrying capacity of the Alps area, the real inclusion of local communities and more distributed and sustainable tourism models”.
“With standard resorts, local traditions and cultures are suppressed, disappear or are distorted, turning into instruments of tourism and not generators of a sustainable model,” concludes Musai.
This investigation was carried out with the support of Journalismfund Europe. The Albanian version was first published on Citizens.al on 20 February 2026.
