Rescuing Lake Prespa through cross-border activism

“Three countries, two lakes, one destination,” says Greek environmentalist Mirsini Malakou, who has worked toward this vision in the Balkans for 30 years.

Malakou is head of the Society for the Protection of Prespa (SPP), a Greek non-governmental organisation that strives to preserve one of the oldest freshwater systems in Europe, the Prespa lakes.

The mountain-rimmed lake basin where Great Prespa Lake and Small Prespa Lake lie took shape about five million years ago, long before human beings joined the ecosystem or nation states laid boundaries.

Today, these two stunningly picturesque and largely unspoiled bodies of water are shared by three countries: Greece, Albania and North Macedonia.

The impact of political tension

In places where nationalist politics dominate, as they do in the Balkans, crossborder collaboration is notoriously complicated.

But the existential crisis facing the two Prespa lakes — receding shorelines and the challenge of protecting more than 2,000 species of fish, birds, mammals and plants — means that there is no alternative to such cooperation.

Inspired by the Dalmatian Pelican

One of Prespa’s most illustrious inhabitants is the distinctive Dalmatian Pelican with its huge pink and orange bill, white plumage and curly nape feathers.

1,500 pairs of this rare species of bird live in Prespa’s rich ecosystem, making it the largest Dalmatian Pelican colony in the world.

The pelicans themselves highlight the fact that political boundaries mean nothing to wildlife. “They breed in Greece, feed in North Macedonia and sleep in Albania,” says Malakou.

If one element of the pelicans’ three-country routine is disturbed — breeding, feeding or sleeping — the others suffer.

Likewise, when a farmer’s fertilisers or livestock discharges introduce toxins into the lakes, the water quality in all three countries deteriorates.

Three decades ago, environmentalists like Malakou understood that they had to look beyond borders and work together — and not against one another — if they were to preserve the lakes’ ecosystem.

Breaking with the past

After the fall of communism in Albania and Yugoslavia (to which North Macedonia then belonged), thorny historical disputes resurfaced and toxic antagonisms rippled across the Balkans.

Greece and Albania, for example, never officially declared peace after World War II, while Greece and North Macedonia were engaged in a lengthy dispute over the latter’s official name.

But despite the tumult caused by such national questions, environmental NGOs in the three countries of the Prespa lakes region began connecting and working together.

“In North Macedonia and Albania, the states were still establishing themselves,” explains Malakou. “We started simply by exchanging thoughts and opinions.”

In time, the SPP and two other NGOs (PPNEA in Albania and the Macedonian Ecological Society in North Macedonia) joined forces and created a transnational alliance called Prespa Net.

Critically, the NGOs in Prespa Net address the lakes as an environmental issue rather than a national one. It’s an approach that could work elsewhere in the Balkans and beyond, too.

Engaging with the locals

The problems facing the Prespa lakes are obvious to the naked eye: Their waters have receded steadily for 20 years, leaving rock, beach and eventually pastureland where littoral currents once met its shores.

Daniela Zaec, manager of the Macedonian Ecological Society in Resen, North Macedonia, attributes the disappearing water to climate change and human activity, such as farming.

“We have a lot of orchards in this area, and people use the lake water for irrigation,” she says. This can destroy wetland habitats, which are then converted into farmland, which requires yet more irrigation.

Working with young people

Learning from the SPP’s positive experience in engaging with locals in Greece, Zaec’s NGO focuses on community outreach in much the same way.

Zaec finds working with young locals particularly fruitful. “We take school classes into the national parks and show them how we work,” she explains.

Although all three organisations want these educational programs to be transnational, they aren’t yet. Politics keeps getting in the way.

Malakou says that younger generations of environmentalists are less affected by toxic nationalism. For them, she says, cross-border collaboration is essential not only for tackling the region’s problems, but also for working and living in a European context.

Creating jobs in the region

Adnan Bego is a 26-year-old environmental engineer who works for PPNEA in Albania.

“I volunteered for one year here and after that started working [for PPNEA]. It’s not easy to find work and many young people from Albania go to Germany or Italy,” he said.

PPNEA works closely with the Albanian national park service, tracking Prespa’s brown bears. It brings multinational tourist groups on walks, showing them the natural beauty of Prespa and explaining its sensitive ecosystem.

Bego hopes that the mix of ecology and tourism will encourage emigrants to come home or keep them from leaving in the first place.

Developing tourism also means developing essential infrastructure — streets, sewage systems, electricity grids, internet access — which would be a boon in poor southern Albania.

Investments needed

The people who live near the lakes in all three countries want to boost their beleaguered local economies with tourism. They say that transnational eco-tourism in Prespa could be a lucrative option for investors and insist that development won’t have a negative impact on nature.

At the same time, the NGOs in Prespa Net want to ensure that tourism and nature preservation don’t clash.

The concept taking shape involves all three countries and touts the region’s unspoiled landscapes: Tourists could hike a scenic network of nature trails, cross seamlessly from country to country, eat fish from the clean lakes and local produce in hotels and restaurants run by locals — a single vision for all of Prespa’s lakeside communities.

The current reality, however, is quite different.

So far, only a trickle of holiday makers visits the lakes every year. The receding shoreline makes the water silty and clogs it with algae. A hiking trail that winds its way around the lakes remains incomplete.

A vision of open borders

At a time when even EU member states are closing their borders, the vision of openness in the Prespa region goes against the grain.

The enduring power of Prespa Net lies in the efficacy of its informal network, say its members. With determination and a clever approach, the NGOs have learned how to bypass any hurdles that the three national governments have placed in their way.

What’s more, their years of cooperation and experience show that this kind of cross-border collaboration is beneficial for all residents of the region — including the Dalmatian Pelicans.