In Albania’s new UNESCO site, environmental worries abound

By Fatos Bytyci and Florion Goga

TEPELENE, Albania (Reuters) -A strong wind blows scraps of plastic from an open landfill into the Vjosa River in Albania. A few hundred metres upstream, a large pipe discharges sewage into the fast-flowing water. Elsewhere, diggers scrape gravel from the riverbed to make concrete, which experts say alters the river’s path and destabilises its banks.

Last month, UNESCO labelled the Vjosa valley in Albania as one of 26 newly-designated Biosphere Reserves, part of an initiative to “safeguard some of the planet’s richest and most fragile ecosystems”, it said in a statement.

In many places the valley, which follows the river’s course from northern Greece to Albania’s Adriatic coast, appears to meet the criteria of an environmentally rich area. It is home to o