Editorial: Failing to see the forest for the trees in Butrint

Criticism of a new management plan for the national park, and the AADF’s involvement, is unwarranted, misguided or malicious. 

TIRANA TIMES EDITORIAL

An ongoing debate over a new management plan for the Butrint National Park has been taking place in the Albanian media, parliament and among experts, often casting the project in completely the wrong light. Talk of “privatization” and “concession” is clearly misguided or malicious. 

Butrint, at the country’s southern tip, is the jewel of Albania’s ancient historical heritage. As such, its management in a way that protects and sustains the site in the long term, has been paramount for successive Albanian governments. To help with that goal, a new management plan for the park has been funded by one of Albania’s most venerable organizations, the Albanian-American Development Foundation, which carries the legacy of investment by the U.S. government in easing Albania’s economic transition from the communist era to a free market economy. 

AADF is funding the plan and assisting in the creation of a structure that protects the park and guarantees that revenues are used to develop the site in accordance with the standards of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.   

Independent experts who have looked at the plan note that the engagement of the AADF in Butrint is very beneficial for the national park and its sustainability. They say it ought to be supported rather than attacked. 

Unfortunately, AADF’s involvement appears to be coming under attack in an unprofessional way in the media and by certain individuals. The foundation told us no journalist, for example, had sent any requests for comments or questions, before reporting about the so-called “privatization of Butrint” or publishing unfounded reports at the territory of the park would be shrank so that third parties can profit from it, using the space to conduct business. The political opposition has joined some of that baseless criticism with its comments in parliament. 

So AADF, one of Albania’s most beneficial organizations, has come under accusations that seem to aim to hurt its reputation — grounded in either lack of professionalism from the media, political motivation to grab a few headlines or individuals whose personal interests are affected by the plan to improve the Butrint National Park. 

This case is one in which the opposition should have been more careful, in respect to the strategic work the AADF has conducted over the years. 

But there is more to this story than AADF’s reputation. Instead of praising a success story, the critics have painted it with the wide brush of corruption, which hurts the fight against that pervasive evil in Albania, as it makes it relative. In joining that trend, the opposition has lost some of its credibility when future corruption cases arise. 

The media too becomes less credible, when instead of digging into the paperwork, properly reporting on the case, asking questions and quoting all sides, focuses simply on whatever cliche narrative appears easiest to put out. 

It’s important to highlight that in a country where corruption shapes identity, not everything and everyone is corrupt. The public lynching of an organization’s reputation cannot be based on a narrative of imaginary corruption that keeps us under the clutches of  “a dictatorship of banality,” as Adam Michnik put it.

(Main photo credit: Anastasia Tzigounaki/© UNESCO)