REPUBLISHED

One lake, two narratives: the waste crisis in Kukës escalates

Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 28 April 2026

Good weather has officially opened the tourist season, and Kukës, one of the natural gateways to the north and Kosovo, should have entered this period with one of its most important assets: the lake. Instead, this year’s season is unfolding amid a recurring environmental crisis.

Entire stretches of the lake are covered in plastic waste, a sight directly at odds with the tourist image the area is trying to build. At precisely the moment when visitor numbers rise and attention to the area grows, the pollution becomes more visible, and harder to dispute.

Yet even in this situation, two conflicting narratives about the same lake are circulating.

On one side, Kukës Municipality’s official channels, the latest images published by the municipality (dated 24 April) and Mayor Albert Halilaj portray the waste situation in Lake Fierza as managed and under control.

Photographs of a relatively clean water surface, boat-based interventions and captions suggesting a timely response. On the other side, however, media reports and posts by environmental activists show a different reality.

Dense masses of plastic covering substantial stretches of the lake, particularly in areas where streams and tributaries of the rivers feeding Lake Fierza flow into it.

This contrast is more than aesthetic. It is central to understanding the waste crisis in this lake, which Citizens.al has also covered repeatedly in in-depth reports.

One lake, two irreconcilable views

Recent reports document a “grave environmental picture in Kukës”, with the lake appearing as a floating dumping ground for waste arriving from upstream along the two branches of the Drin.

In images circulating in the media and on social networks, plastic forms continuous layers, blocking the surface and directly affecting the ecosystem.

Public communication by the institutions seems to avoid this full picture. It selects fragments of reality that are more manageable visually and politically. This is a familiar communication strategy in Albania, where crises, even when they cannot be denied, are framed to minimise them.

But reports by activist Arben Trota have clearly overturned this framing. Through several videos posted on Facebook, he has exposed an extremely serious situation in Gostil, Shtiqën and along the Luma River, where a large wave of waste has accumulated on the shore.

“It isn’t only Ramhasi [the central area facing the lake] that is polluted,” appealed Trota, addressing Kukës Municipality.

This account was recently joined by a public appeal from environmental activist Lulzim Baumann, who works on the lake through an initiative by his organisation Recycling Albania, also in cooperation with the municipality, using a boat to collect waste from the water.

In an appeal to Prime Minister Edi Rama and his counterpart in Kosovo, Albin Kurti, he described the situation as a regional emergency.

However, in a more detailed assessment given to Citizens.al by phone, Baumann made an important distinction: officially, there has been no dramatic escalation across the entire lake, but pollution has become concentrated and more intense in specific areas, particularly in Përbgreg, in the Luma valley.

According to him, this is a recurring pattern, directly linked to increased waste dumping and natural conditions.

After heavy rainfall and swelling of the Drini i Bardhë (White Drin), large masses of waste are carried into these areas and deposited there, forming dense accumulations.

Although boat-based interventions have continued, not only in the central part of the lake but also in other areas, including stretches of the Drini i Zi (Black Drin), he acknowledged the limits of this environmental work.

Fluctuations in the water level often make it impossible to intervene where the wind drives waste towards the shore.

“Even if 10 boats were there, there’s nothing we could do about it then,” Baumann stressed, describing a situation in which current capacity runs up against the true scale of the problem.

Fundamentally, he says, this is no longer an issue that can be managed at local level. Even with environmental organisations and the municipality involved, capacity remains insufficient to confront a phenomenon fed by the entire Drin basin.

The problem appears to lie in the absence of a coordinated mechanism at government and cross-border level, primarily with Kosovo.

Because, as Baumann stresses, a municipality, or a local authority on the other side of the border, cannot cope with a crisis produced by an entire system.

“We clean up, while new waste keeps coming,” remains the simplest and most accurate description of a cycle that keeps repeating without structural intervention.

According to him, around 20 tonnes of waste a year have been removed from the lake through organised interventions. But this is merely an effort to manage the consequences, rather than stop the source.

The demands are clear: joint action by Albania and Kosovo, an end to waste dumping and flows of waste into the White Drin and Black Drin rivers, and genuine enforcement of environmental law.

For environmental activist Besjana Guri, who heads the “Lumi” centre, this is a structural problem rather than a temporary one.

“This is no coincidence, but a systematic failure,” she says, extending the map of the crisis beyond Kukës to include the deltas of Albania’s main rivers: Ishëm, Drin, Vjosë and Seman.

According to her, the phenomenon repeats itself along the same lines: waste carried by the current accumulates and shifts, without ever being stopped at source. In this sense, Lake Fierza and the Drin cascade itself, which continues through Koman, Vau i Dejës and beyond, are not exceptions, merely places where the problem becomes visible.

There have been repeated warnings of the crisis Kukës is experiencing in the lake beside it. In several cross-border reports, Citizens.al has shown how the White Drin and its tributaries function as a regional waste-transport system.

Waste dumped in Kosovo and Albania ends up in the same “dumping ground”: Lake Fierza. The lack of coordination between the countries makes effective intervention impossible.

Pilot projects and sporadic clean-up operations have failed to establish a lasting prevention mechanism.

In this context, every “clean photograph” of the lake is, at best, an isolated moment in an uninterrupted cycle of pollution. At worst, it is outright propaganda that attempts to manipulate reality.

Within this cycle, the official narrative risks becoming part of the problem by presenting the crisis as manageable when it is visibly out of control.

*The article was updated with an additional comment from L.Baumann.