Albania’s pelican colony was bouncing back. Now it faces the threat of a new airport

Narta lagoon's Dalmatian pelicans were saved from extinction but now the government is building an airport in Vlora's protected landscape

Half a dozen Dalmatian pelicans fly off as we approach the Narta lagoon, a marshland near Vlora in south-west Albania. It is a majestic sight - six elegantly soaring birds, with necks tilted back and wingspans almost matching that of an albatross. They're juveniles," says Taulant Bino, head of the Albanian Ornithological Society (AOS). They might start their own family in the next years."

Although Dalmatian pelicans (Pelecanus crispus) do not breed here, the lagoon serves as an important feeding site for the birds and many more species, including flamingos, gull-billed terns and Kentish plovers. Migratory birds use the lagoon as a stopover during their long journey between Africa and central and northern Europe. They are key Mediterranean wetlands, the type of habitat that covered much of the whole Albanian coast until Enver Hoxha's dictatorial regime drained large swaths of it in the 1950s and 60s, in an attempt to eradicate malaria and develop the lowlands for agriculture.