On the southern coast of Albania, where the Adriatic and Ionian worlds meet, the landscape unfolds with an almost impossible beauty. The Narta Lagoon glimmers beneath the Mediterranean sun. Flamingos move through the shallow waters, their reflections trembling in the wind. Pine forests bend toward the sea. Nearby, the island of Sazan rises from the water, a rugged outcrop of limestone cliffs and hidden coves, long protected by its history as a military zone. For generations, these landscapes belonged not only to the Albanian state but to the imagination of the Albanian people. They were places of fishing, memory, and collective belonging. They were also ecological treasures, habitats for migratory birds and rare species that have survived the relentless destruction of much of the Mediterranean coastline. Today these lands have become the site of a profound political struggle.

The immediate trigger has been a series of luxury resort developments linked to Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. The projects, centred on Sazan Island and the Zvërnec peninsula, promise billions of euros in investment and a transformation of Albania into a destination for the global elite. The Albanian government has celebrated the developments as symbols of modernisation and economic growth. Critics see something very different. They see the conversion of public and protected landscapes into enclaves for wealth. They see a transfer of common resources into private hands. They see the latest chapter in a long history of dispossession. What began as local opposition soon became a national movement. Villagers challenged disputed land claims. Environmental organisations warned of irreversible ecological damage. Young people mobilised through social media. Thousands poured onto the streets of Tirana and other cities. Demonstrators carried flamingo symbols drawn from the threatened wetlands, giving rise to what has become known as the Flamingo Revolution. Their slogan was simple and powerful: Albania is not for sale.

When the Albanian socialist experiment was dismantled in 1991, it appeared as if the entire residue of the socialist period that began in 1944 had been destroyed. But there are fumes of it in this Albania is not for sale protest. During that period, land was transformed from private ownership into collective and state-controlled property as part of a broader effort to build a socialist economy. Agricultural land was gradually organised into cooperatives and state farms, while major natural resources, industry, and urban property were placed under public ownership. These reforms aimed to eliminate large landholdings, reduce social inequalities in the countryside, and ensure that land and productive assets served collective social needs rather than private profit. Public property became a central pillar of the Albanian socialist system, reflecting the state’s commitment to centralised planning and collective development.

Thirty-five years after the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania was dismantled, ideas of community property and social progress remain alive and well in Albania – despite the absolute collapse of its political vehicle. The movement of the Flamingo Revolution contain themes that resonate with Albania’s socialist legacy – especially the defence of public property and opposition to the commodification of land – but it is not primarily organised around socialist nostalgia or an explicit socialist political programme (left-wing groups are part of the protest, but they do not dominate it). Prime Minister Edi Rama’s father – Kristaq Rama – was a notable sculptor in the socialist period with close ties to Enver Hoxha, but Rama – a painter in his youth – organised protests against the communist government and is largely associated with post-communist corruption. The ideological confusions in Albania are apparent in the dynamics of its current politics.

The protests are remarkable not only because of their scale, but because of what they represent. For many Albanians, the issue extends beyond the specific projects. The demonstrations have become a vehicle for broader frustrations regarding corruption, opaque decision-making, and a political system that appears increasingly responsive to foreign investors and domestic oligarchs rather than to ordinary citizens. The conflict over land has become a conflict over democracy itself. Standing on the shores of Narta Lagoon, one can understand why the protests have resonated so deeply. This is not an empty landscape awaiting development. It is already full. It is full of life, history, and meaning. To look across the lagoon at sunset, with flamingos moving across the water and the mountains turning purple in the distance, is to see a different measure of value than the one contained in an investment prospectus.

Half a world away, another island landscape faces a similar fate. Great Nicobar lies at the southern edge of the Indian archipelago, where dense tropical forests meet the Indian Ocean. Ancient trees tower above the forest floor. Rivers wind through mangroves. Coral reefs flourish offshore. The island is home to unique species found nowhere else on Earth. It is also home to Indigenous communities, including the Shompen people, whose lives remain deeply connected to the forest. The Indian government’s Great Nicobar project envisions a radically different future. Plans include a major trans-shipment port, an international airport, power infrastructure, urban settlements, and extensive commercial development. Supporters present the project as a strategic necessity and a catalyst for economic growth. Critics warn that it threatens one of the world’s most fragile ecological zones and risks profound social consequences for Indigenous communities.

The scale of the proposed transformation is difficult to comprehend. Vast stretches of forest are to be cleared. Roads and construction corridors are already cutting into ecosystems that evolved over millennia. Environmental researchers have documented extraordinary biodiversity, including species only recently identified by science. Opponents argue that once this ecological fabric is torn apart, it cannot be restored.

Although the Albanian and Nicobarese cases differ in important respects, they share a common political logic. In both instances, governments frame large-scale projects as symbols of national progress. In both cases, local communities and environmental defenders ask who benefits from that progress. In both places, land is treated as an underutilised asset whose highest purpose is commercial exploitation. The language differs – tourism in Albania, strategic infrastructure in Nicobar – but the underlying assumption remains strikingly similar. This assumption is that value appears only when capital arrives.

Yet the protesters in Albania and the defenders of Great Nicobar offer a different understanding. They insist that value already exists. It exists in wetlands that sustain migratory birds, in forests that regulate climate and preserve biodiversity, in communities whose relationship with the land cannot be measured by market prices, and in public access to beaches, forests, and coastlines that belong to everyone rather than to those wealthy enough to purchase them.

The struggle unfolding in Albania therefore speaks to a global crisis. Across the world, some of the most beautiful and ecologically significant landscapes are being reimagined as investment opportunities. Islands become resorts, forests become infrastructure corridors, and coastlines become luxury real estate. This is the attitude of the West toward Gaza: eradicate its people from the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea and create luxury hotels and resorts for the wealthy; the genocide in Palestine is rooted in a culture of land grab. Obviously, there is nothing so grave taking place in Albania, but there is hint of similarity in this attitude to the conversion of public land into private property.

What disappears in the process is not merely humanity and nature, but a sense of collective ownership and democratic control over the spaces that shape human life. The Albanian protesters understand this. Their movement emerged from a defence of flamingos and wetlands but has evolved into a defence of national dignity. The slogan Albania is not for sale is not a rejection of development, but a demand that development serve society rather than private accumulation.

The same principal echoes through the debates surrounding Great Nicobar. The central question is not whether development should occur. The question is who defines development, who bears its costs, and who enjoys its benefits. On the shores of the Narta Lagoon and in the forests of Great Nicobar, people are asking a profoundly democratic question: can the future be built without destroying the very worlds that make life possible? Their answer is becoming increasingly clear. The land is not for sale.