Albania’s Coast to Raise the Blue Flag and Attract More Tourists
Balkan Travellers
The Blue Flag status in granted to beaches that correspond to strict water quality criteria. It is awarded by the Copenhagen-based NGO Foundation for Environmental Education. Albania is the only country in Europe with a sea coast that doesn’t have a single blue-flagged beach, the IPS news agency recently reported.
Albania’s coastline on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas stretches over nearly 400 kilometres and though the country remains the least developed in Europe, it is already suffering from uncontrolled overdevelopment along its coasts, including on places where normal road infrastructure does not exist. There is a lack of proper sewage treatment facilities. Solid waste disposal systems are badly organised and unregulated dumping of garbage damage the quality of the landscape.
The initiative is expected to not only help Albania to attract more tourists, but also to engage local communities in working to keep their surroundings clean.
“The blue flag system in itself is a tourist attraction,” Lauren Bohatka, the UNDP's eco-tourism programme manager told IPS. “Tourists who spot a beautiful beach from the road will no longer have to face the disappointment of finding a neglected site.”
In addition, the initiative may give a much-needed push for Albanians to become involved in cleaning activities, which were largely dropped with the fall of communism in 1991 and are now perceived as having been imposed by the fallen regime.
“The best thing is that it stirs up community pride; after the first community does it others will want to do the same, and it will start a little competition,” Bohatka added. “Once communities get [the blue flag] standing they don't want to let it go, and hopefully it will also inspire other entrepreneurial activities.”
Currently, Albania’s government, supported by the World Bank, has began an Integrated Coastal Zone Management and Clean-up Project whose successful conclusion would do much to turn the Blue Flag project into a concrete reality, IPS reported.
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Photogalleries
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A Perfect Shot
Koprivshtitsa Fair, Bulgara. Photographs by Neva Micheva
In Homo Urbanus Europeanus, exhibited May 9-24 in front of the National Theatre in Sofia, Jean-Marc Caracci presents his photographs of people in the urban environment of European capitals.
RED&WHITE SOFIA. On the 1st of March Bulgarians say goodbye to the winter. They buy each other red&white threads to carry around until they see a stork and spring can begin. Photography by Lode Desmet
BULGARIA D'OR: The Bulgarian countryside, patinated with the noble golden dust of the autumn. Photographs by Lode Desmet
360 degrees Bulgaria, an exhibition by photographer Alexandar Ivanov, is on display at the Sea Garden in Varna until August 28. It will be shown at Plovdiv’s Central Square from Sept 5.
The exhibition Photographs of a Trip Through Bulgaria by Hungarian photographer András Balla can be seen in Sofia's Hungarian Cultural Institute, at Aksakov 16 Street, until August 22
Instant Spring in Sofia | Photographs by Lode Desmet
Off-the-season Beauty of Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast | Photographs by Adelina Iliev
Bulgaria's Northern Black Sea Coast
Photographs by Albena Shkodrova
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