It started with Ivanka Trump’s private yacht trip.
Now the flamingo has risen as an unlikely mascot of intensifying protests across Albania.
To discover how this fierce fight to stop a Trump-linked luxury resort all started, we have to rewind to 2021.
That’s when the Kushners — Jared and Ivanka — first encountered the undeveloped island of Sazan lying in the Adriatic Sea just off the Albanian coast.
Ms Trump has since waxed poetic about the private yacht trip and subsequent dip which sparked the development idea.
“We swam to the islands, went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top and we were just captivated and it stayed with us ever since,” she told podcast host David Senra in May.
From there, the island has been on a journey “to help realise its potential”, as the US president’s daughter coined it.
This included preliminary approval from the Albanian government, which occurred on December 30.
That approval likely benefited from Mr Kushner’s relationship with the Albanian leader Prime Minister Edi Rama, built as part of his role in the first Trump administration.
Jared Kushner shared concept art of the project in 2024. (X:@jaredkushner)
It is understood the project, under the Miami-based firm Affinity, will cost $1.98 billion, for two components: a coastal development in the Vjosa-Narta Lagoon area and a smaller resort on nearby Sazan.
Mr Kushner has said he plans for it to “be the ideal resort that I’d want to be at with my family and with my friends”.
Meanwhile his wife views it as a “tangible manifestation” of her real estate experience, travel, and how “people are increasingly wanting to live”.
Ivanka Trump has positioned herself as a real estate guru, not a former White House senior adviser, in the resort’s development. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
Wait, why flamingos?
Wildlife has flourished on Albania’s coast which has remained largely underdeveloped due to years of harsh communist rule.
The island — the site of an old communist-era military base — is now home to more than 200 migratory bird species, rare Mediterranean monk seals and nesting sea turtles.
The Mediterranean monk seal, categorised as ‘vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conversation of Nature’s list of threatened species, also calls the island home. (Reuters:Amir Cohen)
And of its birds, none is more pronounced than the flamingo.
Ornithologist Ledi Selgjekaj told Reuters more than 1 per cent of the global population lives in Albania.
It’s why mass protests against the project have been dubbed the “flamingo revolution”.
Albania’s Vjosa-Narta wetlands shelter hundreds of bird species including flamingos. (Reuters: Florion Goga )
Thousands of people have demonstrated in the streets of the capital Tirana since excavators and other heavy machinery were seen entering the area in May.
Conservation group, the Preservation and Protection of the Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA) has also accused the workers of operating without permits, digging into sand, and said the impact was “the worst ever recorded in Albania’s protected areas”.
“The ecological damage is severe and, in some cases, already irreversible,”
the nonprofit said.
“Gravel has been dumped onto ancient sand dunes designated as Natural Monuments under Albanian law, damage scientists say will take hundreds of years to repair.”
PPNEA shared evidence of what it said was the “ongoing destruction” in the region. (Supplied: PPNEA)
Ms Trump, in her podcast appearance, said the development was taking “restraint and care”.
“The land is so beautiful that really the architecture has to be fully integrated into it, almost rise from it,” she said.
Meanwhile, developers have said their focus is “responsible stewardship and environmental enhancement”.
The fate of the flamingos has became a protest symbol. (Reuters: Florion Goga)
Corruption probe poses hurdle
Around the time the Kushner development was approved in 2024, Albania’s government made it easier for tourism development to take place on environmentally protected land.
Now the state’s anti-corruption agency may be investigating that coincidence.
It confirmed it had opened an investigation related to the project but has not disclosed details.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama (second from right) poses with Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner (far left). (Supplied: X)
The Albanian government has previously defended the development as being in compliance with environmental rules.
Meanwhile, Mr Rama has not backed down, telling Politico “Trump haters” had amplified the protests.
“If it was not Jared, they would not give a shit about what is happening in Albania,” Mr Rama said.
Still, past protests show Albania’s PM may have reasons to fear.
Protesters accuse the Albanian prime minister of corruption. (Reuters: Florion Goga)
In November, close neighbour Serbia’s parliament passed a special law to enable another luxury complex financed by an investment company linked to Mr Kushner.
The following month, Serbia’s prosecutor for organised crime charged four people, including a government minister, with abuse of office and falsifying of documents to help pave the way for the development.
Mr Kushner later withdrew from that planned multimillion investment.
And as “flamingo revolution” protesters like writer Lindita Komani argue, Albania “is not up for sale”.
“It’s not that some corrupt politicians who run Albania can decide what they can do with our property, with the Albanian heritage, the natural heritage, a cultural heritage,”
she said.