Prespa's Pelicans: From 200 Pairs to the World's Largest Colony

The Society for the Protection of Prespa was founded in 1991 by a coalition of Greek and European conservation bodies, on the initiative of Luc Hoffmann, the Friends of Prespa and WWF, and is based in the villages of Agios Germanos and Laimos in the transboundary Prespa basin shared by Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. When reed beds choked the lakeshore and traditional grazing collapsed, the pelicans lost the open wet meadows they need, so the Society rebuilt the hydrology — including a sluicegate between Lesser and Great Prespa to manage water levels — and reintroduced managed grazing using a water buffalo herd and two cattle herds, plus mechanical reed cutting. Dalmatian pelican nesting pairs rose from around 200 in 1991 to roughly 1,400 by 2017–2021, with great white pelicans climbing from about 50 to 700 pairs over the same period, and at least 18 other bird species covered by the EU Birds Directive benefited alongside them. The Society won the Ramsar Convention's NGO award in 1999 for this work.