Realizing the Potential of Albanian Wildlife
“I want to say this up front,” the sparkling Ivanka Trump opened the podcast of her wonderful friend, a dude she had met just that day, a Chuck somebody.1 “I came up with the idea.”
“You did?” The podcaster, whose name was Erwin, couldn’t hide his astonishment.
Ivanka nodded with delicate vigor, her enthusiasm shimmering through her superbly applied make-up. “I discussed it with my husband and he agrees and doesn’t mind my saying so publicly.”
“That it was your idea,” Erwin confirmed.
She pressed her hands against her monochromatic, ultra-premium, fine-gauge cashmere knit by Loro Piana. Wearing that wonderful garment was just like being clad in a cleanly tailored flower petal, so dreamy, so soft, so right for talking to the world on this Chuck somebody’s podcast.
“All mine,” she cooed.
“That’s great!” Erwin encouraged. “So . . . what are we talking about? That is,” he prompted, “what idea?”
Ivanka entwined her hands coyly in her lap. “The organic.”
“Right!” Erwin continued to show avid interest. “The organic . . . ”
But Ivanka wasn’t following. She had become momentarily stunned by the perfection of her midweek manicure, prepared with her favorite Japanese gel nail system, Kokoist #267 Pinkish Sheer Ivory, a wonderful translucent tint for a soft classic look that reflected her game-changing minimalist aesthetic, the very aesthetic she and her husband intended to apply to one of Albania’s critical wildlife preserves, which she was ready to tell Chuck and his podcast world all about if he would just stop interrupting her.
But Erwin broke in again. After all, he had a podcast people were listening to and nothing was happening. “The organic what?”
The woman in pale pink cashmere lifted her silken hands without betraying that she thought this Chuck guy was kind of a dork and circumscribed a halo that encompassed her entire upper body arrayed in that fine-gauge cashmere Loro Piana knit. Holy persons depicted in endlessly repeated portraits throughout the millennia never got halos that big and never wore such attractive cashmeres. “All of it,” she divulged.
“Well, of course,” Erwin popped into the gap. “Organic means totality, doesn’t it?”
The woman nodded modestly. “I have gotten to a place where I know myself,” she murmured.
“Gee,” Erwin breathed.
“I know what I love,” she continued.
“That’s good,” he said, his face all aglow with admiration.
After a contemplative look — a difficult exercise as it forced the goddess of composure to rumple her brow — she confided: “I know where I excel.”
“That’s good, too!” Erwin cried, then thought for a moment. “That’s excellent!”
Ivanka’s confidence was starting to ooze through her sheer-coverage Giorgio Armani Maestro Fusion Makeup known for its lightweight, natural finish, but she kept on: “I know what excites me and know I can sustain excitement over a long period of time.”
“Hooray!” Erwin shouted.
Sometimes the lady’s base included Dior Beauty Backstage Face & Body Foundation to create dimension, followed by a light dusting of Dior Forever Cushion Powder to fix that dimension, but she had decided she didn’t need any dimension for a Chuck somebody’s podcast and had skipped it. It had been the right decision. This guy really was a dork.
“I’ve lived so many different lives —” Her voice sounded just like velvet.
“I bet!” Erwin indulged, his strained face getting a little shiny. No sheer-coverage Giorgio Armani Maestro Fusion Makeup for him. He attempted to achieve focus:
“Specifically, we’re talking about your very own organic idea to transform Albania’s wildlife preserve — the Pishë Poro-Narta Protected Landscape — into something worthwhile?”
“Exactly!” Ivanka beamed. Finally, they were on the same page. What took this guy so long? “We got five miles of beachfront on an amazing peninsula,” she related. “Beautiful white sand beaches. A lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other.”
“It’s in the heart of a protected wildlife preserve and you got the entire area. How did you do that?” he asked.
“Not all of it,” she teased. “We’re leaving room for the birds.”
Erwin pounced. “Just what I wanted to ask. That strip of land combines wetland, coastal, and deltaic habitats that provide sanctuary for more than 34,000 wintering waterbirds. And you were handed the area to develop into a luxury resort. Including five miles of coastline. With 25-foot-high sand dunes.”
“Mmmmm,” she agreed.
“Which you’ve slated for heavy terrain modification?”
“Correct. We’ll be carving beachfront villas right into the dunes.”
“How?” he asked.
“Huh?” she returned. This Chuck someone had some kind of speech impediment. He was very hard to understand. He certainly shouldn’t have a podcast and invite people like her to talk to him.
“How,” Erwin persisted, “will you carve beachfront villas into —”
“Villas, luxury beach clubs, elite leisure spaces —” she rattled off.
“— right into the dunes?” he continued undaunted. “Sand is kind of —”
“A private marina and swimming pools!” she finished, elated.
“— kind of soft,” he concluded a little discouraged, but he recovered himself for his audience’s sake. “Okay! Right! So I see you’ve taken care of the building-on-sand challenge. What about the Pishë Poro-Narta Forest Corridor that borders it? A centuries-old pine forest that runs right down the middle of that strip. The crucial barrier between the Adriatic Sea and the Narta Lagoon protecting the Vjosa River Delta wetland ecosystem. Got something special planned for it?”
“First off, we’re clearing the trees—” she said without hesitation. She was sure of that phase of the sprawling project.
“The native pine canopy as the naturalists call it?” Erwin supplied. “Those ancient pines. You’re clearing them?”
“For roads,” she said.
“Roads to where?”
“To the high-end accommodation units spreading —”
“Don’t tell me!” Erwin jumped in. “Right through the pine forest?”
“It’ll be heavenly.” She clasped her hands. “Just imagine! A massive luxury complex of ten thousand hotel rooms, suites, townhouses, private apartments —”
“Ten thousand?” Erwin asked, “on that little bitty —”
She held a hand high. “— and a water park, and a casino—”
“A casino! Wow!” Erwin feigned elation for his podcast audience. “No need for Monte Carlo if you can cop your casino experience in a former native pine forest corridor. What can match that? So what will you do with what’s left over?”
“Left over?” Rather than sublimely contemplative, Ivanka grew genuinely confused. Albania was a big project. It had lots of parts. She had, frankly, been spending her time wowing her instagram followers with snaps of herself wakeboarding. She wasn’t even sure what city she was in. Oh, yes, Miami. Where she lived.
“The lagoon littoral strip,” Erwin helped her out. On noticing it didn’t help, he ventured: “The mudflats along Narta Lagoon. The west side. Opposite from the coastal dunes on the east side where the Adriatic is. Big plans for those mudflats?”
She frowned, but ever so slightly. “There won’t be a lagoon as such.”
“No?” Erwin asked.
She jutted her jaw and shook her head very slowly. She was sure of that part. “We’re integrating multistory hotels and piers right into the lagoon —”
“And then removing the lagoon?” Erwin asked, then added apologetically, “You said the lagoon wouldn’t exist as such.”
Ivanka’s enthusiasm swelled as she found her footing again. “It’ll be a championship golf course!”
Her energy was infectious. Erwin’s spirits revived. “A pearl of the transformation you were promising, huh? Helping the area realize its potential! Turning it into something worthwhile!”
“Absolutely,” she confirmed, but admitted, “We do want to keep a little of the lagoon—”
“You do?” Erwin asked, incredulous. “Wouldn’t that be . . . yucky?”
“Well, yes. Who wants a lagoon? But we need it for our airport express ferry to take guests to and from the airport that nice man is building nearby.”
“You referring to Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister?” Erwin asked.
She nodded. “A very nice man.”
Erwin nodded in return. “I’m sure you would think so,” he remarked.
“For the tens of thousands of guests milling about that rather narrow stretch of land wondering what to do, you will provide beach clubs, a water park, and a casino.”
“Let me sum up for my listeners, if I may,” Erwin said. “You, Ivanka Trump, a global real estate developer of Old Post Office D.C. fame, are planning to use a lot of restraint and care to transform a pristine wildlife preserve, in fact, Europe’s last wild river delta, into something worthwhile, specifically, ten thousand hotel rooms plumped out with townhouses, beachfront villas, and a marina for yachts and cruise ships. For the tens of thousands of guests milling about that rather narrow stretch of land wondering what to do, you will provide beach clubs, a water park, and a casino, not to mention elite leisure spaces where they can chill out.”
“The culmination of all of my experience in real estate,” Ivanka declared dreamily. “All my travel, an immense amount of time spent in reflection on how I want to live and how I think people increasingly are wanting to live. This is the tangible manifestation of that.”
“Any bird-watching stations planned?” he asked.
“None!” she answered proudly.
“What about toilets?”
Ivanka looked weird for a split second. Her composure thudded back into place a split second later. She smiled. “I guess I didn’t hear you. What was that?”
Erwin frowned. “There’s no sewage system in the area. Where are your high-value tourists going to flush their effluvia? And how?”
“Now that’s a question for my father.” The unflappable dame nodded knowingly.
“The president of the United States, you’re meaning?” Erwin asked skeptically.
“He has a Socratic first-principles way of grilling people about ideas, concepts, designs — ”
“Toilets?”
“— to reduce complex things down to something really fundamental and simple.”
“Have you asked him about toilets?” Erwin probed.
“Not yet,” she returned firmly.
Determined to close the highly informative podcast gracefully, Erwin began his wrap-up: “Since your project will take up the entire peninsula, Ivanka, besides providing for the birds, I assume you’ve been very careful about ensuring the local population has access to the beaches they’ve been visiting all their lives.”
“No!” she responded with spirit. “In our business, Chuck, the clientele you’re serving cherishes its privacy above all else. And we —”
“What did you call me?” Erwin rasped.
“I didn’t call you anything,” she defended, drawing back, her eyes flashing.
“You called me — never mind.” Erwin resumed his cool for the sake of his audience. “So you’re closing off the area to the local population to ensure your clientele’s privacy, which means, for example, family businesses renting deckchairs will have to find another source of income. Is that right?”
“Change is good,” she reminded him frostily. She knew the world if this Chuck somebody didn’t.
Erwin pursued his point: “Turning the entire peninsula into a hyper-exclusive gated community for international luxury travelers to spend a week riding speedboats and gambling, which they could do in ten thousand other places.”
“Exactly!” she confirmed. “All in the strictest privacy.”
“Just what the world needs,” he offered glumly.
“Just what Albania needs,” she corrected him. “Just ask that nice man.”
“That Edi Rama,” Erwin filled in for her. “The prime minister. Who arranged all this for you.”
“We are Albania’s only hope, he said,” she informed him. “Whether the Albanians know it or not. They may think they don’t like it, but it’s for their own good.”
“Probably been a tremendous sacrifice for you, no doubt, doing so much good for so many other people.” Erwin remembered himself. “So just one last question, dear Ivanka. You’ve been so kind to spend your time with us and we are so grateful.”
She dimpled.
“Where do you think the Greater Flamingo will go? The Vjosa-Narta lagoon ecosystem is their only nesting site in Albania and a critical feeding ground for them. Conservationists estimate up to 7,000 flamingos pass through during their migration cycles. I don’t think they’ll stick around to dodge airport ferries, speedboats, and runoff from your Socratic sewage. If it didn’t drive them off, the noise, lights, and stink would disturb, weaken, sicken, then kill them. So where will they go, do you think?”
“That’s what’s so wonderful about this world,” she said, her face regaining its puzzling, nearly constant radiance. “Nature is so inspiring. I’m so grateful for nature. It’s our greatest teacher. It always finds a way. It always finds somewhere else to go.”
“Nature’s dinosaur didn’t,” Erwin remarked bleakly.
As Ivanka was wondering what that might mean, Erwin recovered his charm:
“But, lovely Ivanka, unfortunately our time is up! Thank you so much for joining me! The indefatigable Ivanka Trump!” He lifted an index card and, with no change in his tone or cadence, began reading: “Businessperson! Entrepreneur! Cutting-edge incubator person! Fashion designer! Jewelry designer! Former senior advisor to the president of the United States! World-renowned wakeboarder! Game-changing global real estate developer with the unique insight, skill, and experience to balance land preservation and development! A visionary who stands for biodiversity and ecologically sustainable, conservation-friendly development for a profitable and clean future for everyone!” He put the card down and smiled at his guest. “And the birds, am I right? Thank you, lovely Ivanka!”
Ivanka dimpled for the last time. “Thanks for having me, Chuck.”
Erwin stared, but decided it was a wrap.
This was Albania, not the U.S. When the brutality was publicized, protesters weren’t labeled domestic terrorists and locked up. Ivanka and Jared’s security forces were called off.
Albanians are not Americans. Their country is smaller. Their national problems are easier to pinpoint. Solutions are easier to agree on. Public opinion coalesces faster with greater clarity and resolve. When Albanians find they’ve been defrauded, gypped, or lied to; when, for example, it comes to their attention that a major wildlife wetland preserve has been sold off to a real estate developer under the table; they achieve solidarity and register their displeasure within hours.2
Shortly after barbed-wire-topped fences went up blocking locals from the Zvernec strip, thousands of protesters appeared along those fences demanding they come down. The protest swelled to the tens of thousands, taking to the streets in Albania’s capital, Tirana, as well.
Private security forces — goons in the employ of the impeccably groomed Ivanka and her spindly husband Jared — beat back protesters, pummeled them, dragged them away. But this was Albania, not the United States. When the brutality was publicized, the protesters weren’t labeled domestic terrorists and locked up. Ivanka and Jared’s security forces were called off and stripped of their licenses.
No, it was not the United States. It was Albania. Although Ivanka and Jared had won the vehement support of Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama; although Rama had pulled strings to loosen conservation restrictions to allow the celebrity investors to build their five-star-plus hotels in an ecologically protected area; although Rama had wrangled government benefits for their project, including a 10-year tax-free window during construction, expedited environmental reviews and construction permits, and a noncompetitive, exclusive arrangement to operate a private marina in Karaburun-Sazan National Marine Park; despite years of sedulous covert support at the highest government level, Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office opened a corruption investigation. Questions were asked about the web of 15 shadowy shell companies financing the project. Questions were asked about how deeds to ancestral land on that strip got into the hands of a refugee Albanian businessman living in Miami Beach3 who shuffled the land parcels through a series of firms until they ended up in the possession of the real estate developer in Albania working directly for Kushner. Being Albania and not the United states, Ivanka and Jared’s dream luxury resort complex project got shut down within weeks while investigations continued.
Besides the astonishing achievement of quashing a Trump/Kushner real estate project, Albanians can be proud to have snatched their Greater Flamingos from the nasty fate of becoming the effluvia of Ivanka’s sustainable future. For now.
- Ivanka provided the revelatory insights contained in this interview to David Senra on his podcast May 31, 20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhsiMd9ZFNk ↩︎
- Wikipedia contributors. (2026, July 7). Flamingo Revolution. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:39, July 7, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flamingo_Revolution&oldid=1362979281 ↩︎
- Artur Shehu, a businessman with whom locals have been involved in legal land disputes for two decades. Shehu resides in a multimillion-dollar colonial-style villa in Miami Beach. ↩︎