TIRANA, June 7 -- The excavators arrived before the explanation did. On a stretch of protected Adriatic coast, residents say, bulldozers began clearing beaches with no public notice, no posted plans, nothing but the machines themselves. Within days the capital filled with people carrying cutouts of pink flamingos, the birds that nest in the wetland now marked for a luxury resort, and the protests have not let up.

What they are protesting is not an ordinary development. The project is tied to Affinity Partners, the investment firm run by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, and the plan would turn Sazan Island, a former communist military base, and part of the protected Vjosa-Narta delta into a high-end tourist complex....