Vjosa Wild River National Park (Albanian: Parku Kombëtar i Lumit të Egër “Vjosa”) is a national park located in southern Albania. The Vjosa River is Europe's first Wild River National Park that was designated on 15 March 2023. The park was declared a natural ecosystem by decision of the Council of Ministers, in compliance with Law 81/2017 "On Protected Areas". The river valley is considered Albania's biodiversity hotspot, offering ideal aquatic habitats for over 1,100 species of wildlife, including otters, the endangered Egyptian vulture and the critically endangered Balkan lynx, of which only 15 are estimated to remain.
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In this Dossier
Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape in the context of Vjosa
The Vjosa (Albanian: [ˈvjɔsa]; indefinite form: Vjosë) or Aoös (Greek: Αώος) is a river in northwestern Greece and southwestern Albania. Its total length is about 272 kilometres (169 mi), of which the first 80 kilometres (50 mi) are in Greece, and the remaining 192 kilometres (119 mi) in Albania. Its drainage basin is 6,706 km (2,589 sq mi) and its average discharge is 195 m/s (6,900 cu ft/s). The main tributaries are Voidomatis, Sarantaporos, Drino and Shushicë.
The river arises in the Pindus mountains of Epirus, Greece, and generally flows northwest. It enters Albania near Çarshovë, and empties into the Adriatic Sea just north of Vlorë. Generally wild and unpolluted, the river is surrounded by the Vikos–Aoös National Park in Greece, and the Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape near its mouth. In December 2020, the Albanian portion of the river was designated a "Managed Nature Reserve" by the government. A campaign by the environmentalist groups to designate the whole Albanian part of the course a national park, to guard against the prospective hydroelectric projects, ultimately resulted in the creation of the Vjosa Wild River National Park on 15 March 2023.