The Blue Heart of Europe includes the Vjosa River as it flows unimpeded through Albania. Photo credit: Thomas Hadinger.

By Ryan Gellert, CEO, Patagonia

Have you ever seen a river? Maybe you think you have, but living, free-flowing river systems are a rarity. One by one, humans have dominated nature for short-term gain, channelizing, damming, rerouting, and dredging rivers until there are very few intact river systems left.

Patagonia’s support for grassroots activism began by working to protect the Ventura River, which flows behind our headquarters in California. Since then, we’ve supported groups and communities advocating for free-flowing rivers at home and all over the world while preventing and removing dams in countries from South Korea to Chile.

Each time I’ve stood on the banks of the Vjosa River, it’s clear how critical it is to protect that largely intact river system. The river springs to life in the Pindus Mountains of Greece where it’s called the Aoos until it meets the border with Albania—thereby becoming the Vjosa—before meandering to the Adriatic Sea.

A year ago this month, our support for the Vjosa River took me back to Albania to join Albanian national leaders, international dignitaries, environmental NGOs, scientists, and community members as Prime Minister Edi Rama designated the Vjosa River as Europe’s first wild river national park.

This was a moment many in the river protection movement feared we would never see. Our NGO partners from the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign in the Balkans and across Europe have worked for decades to protect these exceptional ecosystems. They have dedicated their lives to highlighting the destructive impact of hydropower on the last wild rivers of Europe. In doing so, they have reluctantly learned that in nature conservation you often lose more than you win.

As we stood on a hill in Tepelene overlooking the Vjosa River last March, two contrasting thoughts filled my head. First, a deep sense of appreciation for the tireless commitment of all involved. Minister Mirela Kumbaro, Prime Minister Edi Rama, General Director of NAPA Daniel Pirushi, IUCN Associate Director James Hardcastle, and the NGOs who have embodied the mantra of “trust but verify.” This includes Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika from EcoAlbania, Ulrich Eichelmann from Riverwatch, and Gabriel Schwaderer and Annette Spangenberg from EuroNatur. My second thought was that so often in life the reward for solving a problem is an invitation to a bigger problem.

Each of us knew what brought us together that day was both critically important and exceedingly complicated. There were uneasy alliances between NGOs and government leaders who had spent years locked in an adversarial posture. This was in addition to the fact that although we had a framework to guide us provided by the IUCN, in many ways, we were all committing and then figuring it out later. Landscape-level conservation is hard by definition. Far more so when protecting a river system flowing through towns and cities that have existed longer than the US has been a country. Our project would have been ambitious on a normal timeline—it often takes a decade to establish a new national park. We were seeking to move much faster.

So, one year in, what have we learned? It’s been tough. There have been moments when our disagreements felt insurmountable. Even when aligned, we’ve faced challenges that we didn’t anticipate a year ago. The work has been under-resourced on the government side. Each of the core teams within the Albanian government has a full-time job in addition to their work on this project. The rangers who patrol the river have seen their responsibilities increase with few additional resources. Communication across stakeholders—including across government ministries—has created conflicts that risked derailing the project multiple times. We’ve navigated tensions between tourism and conservation. And we’ve developed natural solutions for flood protection, which can be both complicated and time-consuming but also essential for a free-flowing river.

Perhaps our biggest challenge to date is finding a solution to a water-extraction project on the Shushicë River intended to support tourism infrastructure on the Adriatic coast. This important tributary to the Vjosa is currently the focus of intense negotiations between each of the different stakeholders including foreign government funders.

Yet, there have been some meaningful wins this past year. The Albanian government has been actively raising international support for the Vjosa Wild River National Park and the surrounding valley. Working with a team of experts largely funded by Patagonia[CK1] , the project team has drafted both a management plan and governance model. And the Albanian government is finalizing plans for the creation of a visitor center to serve as both a gateway to the park and a resource for protecting the 1,100 species that call it home.

When I reflect on the past eight years we’ve been involved in working to protect the Vjosa River—and the past 12 months since the Vjosa Wild River National Park was created—I start with why we got involved in the first place. To both permanently protect this fragile and largely intact ecosystem, and in doing so create a model for other landscape-level conservation and restoration partnerships between government, civil society, and private companies.

On that first point, permanent protections, one measure of success is that we are still here. Still negotiating. Still fighting like siblings. And still willing to engage when, at times, it would be easier to walk away. On that second goal—creating a new model—our shared impact is starting to scale. Our partners from the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign are working to replicate the model to protect other free-flowing rivers, including the Una River in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Morača in Montenegro. The Albanian government is working with Greece to create a trans-boundary national park from source to sea by including the Aoos River. And I often speak to business leaders, environmentalists and government leaders who are inspired by what these strange bedfellows have come together to accomplish.

I still believe we will succeed in creating a Vjosa Wild River National Park that benefits the citizens of Albania, and the flora and fauna that depend upon it. And in doing so, we will help create a new model for partnering to protect and restore nature. One that combines the strengths of government, civil society, and private business.

Onward …