Under threat radisics/wild wonders of Europe

The largest lake in southern Europe is under threat from a double whammy. Environmentalists say that the development of an “eco-resort” on its shores and several hydropower projects on its major tributary will damage biodiversity and harm endemic species found nowhere else.

Lake Skadar, shared by Albania and Montenegro, is the westernmost breeding ground of the vulnerable Dalmatian pelican, and is recognised as an area of international importance for birds.

More than 280 bird species are found at this largely pristine lake, as well as nearly 50 fish species, 18 of which are found nowhere else, earning it a place on the Ramsar Convention list of Wetlands of International Importance.


But new developments in Montenegro are putting the lake’s status and its unique wildlife at risk, says Nataša Kovačević of Green Home, a non-governmental organisation focused on conservation based in Podgorica, Montenegro. Green Home started a petition with several other NGOs in late December asking the government to save the lake.

The government is seeking to build several hydropower dams on the river Moraca, which provides most of the lake’s water, and which is a biodiversity hotspot itself. Similar hydropower developments also threaten to damage what’s been dubbed Europe’s last truly wild river, in neighbouring Albania.

“Building dams on the Moraca would have unprecedented impacts on the biodiversity of Lake Skadar, the biggest lake in the Balkans and one of the biggest hubs of biodiversity in Europe,” says Kovačević. She says some 20 per cent of bird nesting habitat in the northern part of the lake could be destroyed by changes in the water regime brought about by the dams.

The last resort?

But a more immediate threat might come from a new resort with a hotel and 30 luxury villas, called Porto Skadar Lake, within the boundaries of the lake’s national park. Work has recently begun and it is planned for completion in 2019. The resort is designed to have a minimal environmental impact and is built by the privately-owned Montenegro Resort Company with the government’s blessing.

But critics say the eco-resort will actually affect the lake through polluted waste water produced by the villas, discharge from the spas and 30 swimming pools treated with chemicals. This could jeopardise the ecosystem of the lake and its protected species, they claim.

Fish and nesting birds would be affected by noise from construction and increased presence of tourists in the area, says Goran Sekulić, from WWF Adria, in Zagreb, Croatia.

Lionel Sonig, the owner of the resort company, says the development fully respects Montenegrin laws and his team has conducted a variety of impact studies over the seven years that it took to get the building permit.

Instead of damaging the lake, he says the project will benefit conservation. “With all the taxes that the resort will pay in the future, the national park will have money to protect the lake and the fauna and keep it cleaner than it is – we are not going to destroy what we are going to sell.”

The ministry of sustainable development and tourism, which approved the project, says that the lake’s biodiversity was a key consideration, and that it will regularly monitor the resort’s impact on the lake’s life.

It will only reconsider the building approval if there is hard new evidence to show the resort will damage the lake.