The mighty Vjosa River springs from the Pindus Mountains in Greece, flowing about 50 miles through Greek territory before winding another 120 miles through Albania until it meets the Adriatic Sea.
It has always been a source of inspiration for Olsi Nika, who recently won the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize, alongside his colleague Besjana Guri, for their work protecting the river.
“There is a deity named Vjosa, who in antiquity was called Ao. That is why the river is still called Aos on the Greek side,” he explains, adding that he named his son Aos after the river.
Nika and Guri are the first Albanians to win this prize, often deemed the “Green Nobel Prize”. They are directors of EcoAlbania, a non-profit for environmental protection which has campaigned to prevent widespread dam construction on the river.
Despite being the last wild river in Europe, the Vjosa – which is also a national park – was threatened by plans for eight large hydropower plants and 37 smaller ones.
“Since childhood, I have had a special connection to the sea,” says Nika, remembering how he once thought the river, so enormous, was the sea.
Born and raised in Saranda, a coastal town in southern Albania, he spent much of his childhood 10 miles away at his aunt’s house, in a village on the riverbank.
“The river had something special that drew us in. We would lose ourselves there all day, under the shadows of the trees.”
Nika went on to study biology at the University of Tirana, in Albania’s capital. While he was away, his hometown experienced a chaotic construction boom.
“Even though it pained me to see the town overtaken by concrete, it was still nothing compared to the invisible impact it was leaving underwater. The town’s bay was turning into a vast dumping ground.”
This pushed him to pursue his master’s degree in environmental biology, specialising in marine water quality.
After struggling to find a job and feeling like an outsider in the capital city – “I went through the hardest six months of my life” – he saw an opportunity to work with the environmental organisation, coordinating river protection campaigns.
Let’s hear the River’s Song and then keep it free
Olsi Nika
Nika splits his time between family life in Tirana and over a decade of nonstop activism.
One of the river’s particular enchantments is its connection to Lab Iso-Polyphony, a unique, millennia-old singing tradition in southern Albania protected by Unesco as intangible cultural heritage.
“Every region has its own way of singing. In areas where the river currents are fast, they sing at a faster tempo. The opposite is true in calmer areas.”
Nika and his team have used this distinctive feature to bring attention to the need to protect the river.
As Nika put it as he accepted his honorary award: “Let’s hear the River’s Song and then keep it free.”
