I'm on a journey around the Mediterranean.
It's the sea that attracts around a third of world tourism.
The birthplace of civilisations...
Just look at that!
..where extraordinary wealth...
This one's got a helicopter on it.
..meets shocking poverty.
I take my flipping hat off to them, I really do.
Look at the scale of the destruction!
They're on the edge of the Med.
It's a sea of wild extremes.
Yes, yes, look!
The first leg of my journey takes me from Malta,
along the coast of southern Italy, and on to Albania.
In Italy's beautiful deep south...
Italian wedding!
..I meet some of the Med's most ancient inhabitants.
Oh!
Look at the size of you!
Ciao, amore!
I go on a mission with the elite team hunting
Europe's most powerful Mafia...
I've never seen anything like this.
..and discover the dark heart of the Mediterranean.
The value of the drugs in the convoy is anything up to £200 million.
The Mediterranean, the very name means,
"The centre of the world."
Bounded by three continents - Europe, Africa and Asia -
the Mediterranean has shaped so much of our history.
I'm in a beautiful old fishing boat, and I'm about to start my journey
around the Mediterranean, here in Malta.
It's gorgeous, look at it!
For thousands of years, Malta has been at the absolute
crossroads of history, of trade, of culture,
forever critical, strategic and vital.
More than 20 countries border the Mediterranean.
I was starting my epic journey in the centre of the sea,
in the smallest state in the European Union.
I headed to Malta's beautiful capital, Valletta.
Look at this, what a position on this incredible natural harbour!
I am so excited about being here!
First time!
I'd always wanted to visit Malta.
The country has a spectacular history.
These walls have seen endless conquest, invasion.
In 1565, there was an epic battle here, where the Knights of Malta,
in their grand fortifications, rebuffed an enormous Ottoman Turkish
invasion force that, arguably, ultimately saved
Southern and Western Europe.
Jason, thank you, mate.
No problem.
Nearly!
Give us a push!
Oh!
This is brilliant. This is a great way to arrive, come on!
Modern-day Malta is booming, driven partly
by a huge surge in tourists.
The population is less than half a million.
Around five times that number of tourists comes here
on holiday now every year.
But soaring rents are pushing many Maltese out of the most
crowded tourist hotspots.
Some worry tiny Malta is being overwhelmed.
SCREAMING AND SHOUTING
It's one thing to see a punch-up, isn't it?
But that was sort of a mass brawl,
involving 30 people spilling into the street.
Completely bizarre.
There are quite a few people here in Malta who are saying
that this country is selling its soul to mass tourism,
with all the attendant problems that come with it -
like the drunkenness -
but, much more seriously, it's selling its soul in terms
of dodgy and corrupt business and finance,
and organised crime.
The wealth here is just unbelievable.
Oh, bloody hell, this one, look, this one's got a helicopter on it.
Flipping heck.
As the economy grows rapidly, the source of some of Malta's riches
is coming under increasing suspicion.
I met up with Manuel Delia...
Manuel. How are you?
..one of Malta's most outspoken campaigners.
Where is all this money coming from?
Well, we have less, lower taxes here, so people come
and set up their companies here
but when that is used to front
for people to launder their money from crime,
or from corruption, then it becomes a serious problem.
So, your belief and allegation is that Malta is becoming a base
for international money-laundering?
Yes.
Take our online gaming industry.
The Italian Mafia was using it to launder their money.
Malta is being used to launder the Mafia's money?
Yes, yes, yes.
The European Parliament and Europol, the law enforcement
agency of the European Union, are among those expressing serious
concern about money-laundering in Malta.
Critics say Malta isn't doing nearly enough to investigate dodgy
companies and dirty money sloshing around on the island.
Now we also make money by selling Maltese passports,
one of these.
It's a Maltese passport, but it's also a European Union passport,
so we're basically selling European citizenship,
a million euro a pop.
So, somebody can buy citizenship in Malta,
and access the European Union, as well?
So, they don't have to live here.
No, they're supposed to, but what they do is they just rent garages.
So, I found a garage where some four Russian billionaire tycoons
are supposed to be living inside.
No way! Well, obviously they don't live there.
No. They've never actually seen it, but they pay rent there,
in order to get this.
Malta's not alone in selling citizenship.
Its government insists it carries out proper checks
on its passport scheme, and the country's financial system.
But there have been extraordinary allegations of corruption
and criminality at the highest levels in Malta.
Some even describe it as a Mafia state.
Manuel's friend, journalist Daphne Galizia, was investigating
the dirty money and corruption in Malta.
It made her enemies.
In 2017, they came for her.
This is where she lived.
It couldn't be a more, apart from the road,
a more beautiful and peaceful setting, really, could it?
She was at home, she worked from home,
and she wrote her last blog at about half past two
in the afternoon.
So, it's almost three, and she tells her son,
"Listen, I need to go to the bank," and she drives out.
Where we are now is where the first explosion hits,
and it hits because someone from right across the valley
communicated with his mate, who was out on a boat at sea.
Out on the Mediterranean?
That guy sent a message to a detonator, which was inside
the car, and it exploded.
Daphne's car transformed into a ball of fire,
with her inside.
My God.
Now it's no longer a car, now it's just a moving flame,
and it's just crawling where we are now, over the first field,
and into the second one.
Oh, my goodness.
Yes.
The car stopped here, was consumed here.
As you can see, there's this bald patch in the field here.
Her final spot.
Her son, he hears the explosion.
Barefooted, he just runs to get here.
Oh, my God.
And he gets here, and the car is just billowing fire.
But he knows...
He knows there's nothing you can do.
When did you hear what had happened?
I got a call at three minutes past three.
A friend of mine.
He said, "I think they got Daphne."
That's how clear it was when it happened.
We knew she was in danger, she knew she was in danger.
On the day Daphne was murdered,
she wrote, "There are crooks everywhere you look now.
"The situation is desperate."
She kept holding up a mirror to people in power,
people who are not used to having that done to them,
and those people, boy, they're glad she's not there any more.
It's the 21st century and, on this spot,
down that road, a journalist was blown up with a car bomb,
and died in this field.
It is an absolutely incredible event.
It should shake the absolute pillars of society, here.
It has a chilling effect, it conditions the way you work,
the way you think about your own country.
It's a country where a journalist can be killed,
because it has happened.
Three men are awaiting trial for Daphne Galizia's murder,
but many people suspect whoever gave the orders remains at large.
I have waited 20 years to come here.
I've read about the glorious history of these islands,
and really looked forward to starting the journey here,
and I'm sorry to say there is something rotten
in this country.
These are dark times in Malta.
There have actually been at least 19 bomb attacks in Malta
in recent years, shocking in a country so associated
with Mediterranean tourism.
Yet still now, many in Malta remain in denial about the scale
of corruption and crime on the islands.
I continued my journey around the Mediterranean,
travelling on to southern Italy.
So, we're heading across the water to Calabria,
which is the remote mountainous province that fills
the toe of Italy.
It's one of the great areas for ancient mythology.
Hercules is said to have swum across here.
The Argonauts sailed through here.
It's interesting to see the container ship, actually,
because one of the biggest container ports in the entire
Mediterranean is just around the corner.
The Mediterranean Sea is less than 1% of the global ocean area,
but it's vital for world trade.
The port of Gioia Tauro receives an astonishing 2.5 million
enormous shipping containers every year.
Just look at the scale of this!
These sealed boxes come in here from all over the world,
and they bring the stuff of life with them.
Medicines, showers, nappies, pianos, pineapples or anything else
that we shift around the world.
But many of them are also smuggling illicit goods.
We are in a region that is under the thumb of the 'Ndrangheta,
the Mafia which is the most powerful international organised
crime syndicate in the whole of Europe.
The 'Ndrangheta is a Mafia-type group that's hardly known
outside Italy, but it's had this part of the country
in its grip for decades.
It's now also a global force, smuggling up to 80% of Europe's
cocaine from South America, with large quantities coming
through this port.
I met up with Lieutenant Colonel Giampiero Carrieri
from the Guardia di Finanza, Italy's anti-smuggling police.
What is the normal process by which cocaine in particular
is being smuggled in here?
Do the shipping companies...? Are they part of the whole thing?
No, no, no.
You know, it's only until you get up close to these shipping containers
you realise the size of them, and how impossible it almost is
to find something illicit that's been hidden inside.
Needle and haystack doesn't come close.
This container was clean, but Colonel Carrieri and his team
have had success in their efforts to intercept the smuggling
of cocaine.
But finding it also means getting rid of it,
transporting it through the heartland of the 'Ndrangheta.
What are we doing, what's your plan?
So, we are on over-watch duties for a convoy of narcotics
that's being taken for destruction.
The value of the drugs in the convoy is anything
up to around £200 million.
It is a load that would inspire almost any gang to attack
and try and get them back.
My God, look at them all.
The convoy is just below us.
There's an unmarked car at the front,
and then marked vehicles surrounding an armoured van.
All the time, they're looking for anything unusual on the route,
for spotters, for people following them.
Remember, the Mafia have used car bombs
just a generation ago, that were so powerful,
they registered on Italy's earthquake scale.
I feel like I have seen things like this in far-flung and much
more troubled parts of the world, but here we are in Italy,
at the heart of the European Union, and there is a paramilitary convoy
escorting drugs for destruction.
This is the front line in Europe's war on drugs.
They've put the perimeter around the van,
they've taken up armed positions.
Bloody hell.
Look at this.
One is 200...
200,000 euros.
It's just unbelievable, there is just masses more.
I have never seen it on this sort of scale before.
It's astonishing to see this much.
It's a miracle you have stopped these
before it reaches Naples, London -
the cities where kids now are stabbing each other to death,
in little gang battles, over this drug.
Just this, this is about £25 million worth of cocaine.
One estimate suggests the 'Ndrangheta account for 3%
of the entire Italian economy.
So, they're filming it as well to prove they're destroying it.
The organisation is shockingly powerful.
It makes tens of billions of pounds from drug smuggling.
The street price for cocaine in Europe has stayed pretty stable,
that's coming into Europe.
More than any other Mafia group, the 'Ndrangheta relies on blood ties
and family connections, and the rugged interior
of this remote region of Italy.
Many of the bosses of this powerful international organisation
live quietly in isolated villages.
We're on our way to meet an elite police unit,
called the Cacciatore, which means "the hunters".
Hello, buona sera...
Lieutenant Dario Corcione leads a unit that specialises in hunting
the bosses of the 'Ndrangheta.
Bloody hell.
You get a real sense of what they have to get up to.
Are you military, are you police?
We do both things, so get the information to know
where the people is, and they also have the training
and the tools to go in their house and arrest these people.
You're a well-equipped, surveillance, fighting,
investigative unit.
Satisfying?
Yes, really satisfying.
Heading out.
Using the cover of darkness, Dario and his team took me
on a risky mission deep into 'Ndrangheta territory.
It's not a territory of Italy, you know,
it's territory of 'Ndrangheta.
There is no state there.
That's an incredible thing to hear. They don't want any form of state.
They're trying to keep Italy out?
The territory is their territory.
The 'Ndrangheta organisation uses murder, kidnapping and fear
to control scores of villages like this.
Dario's men led us quietly through backstreets to a building
once used as a safe house by a member of the 'Ndrangheta.
Oh, my God!
This was the entrance.
So, this house was raided, and there was a fugitive
who'd, what, hidden under the floor here?
You can see the stairs.
So, the whole step that was here is mounted on rails to pull it
backwards and forwards.
I mean, that is ingenious.
And this leads to the room where actually they hide themselves.
OK, it's a little bit tricky.
Can you believe what they've done here?
Four, four beds.
This was their life.
What's this?
Oh, my God, there's a whole other tunnel here?
Let's go.
Totally bizarre.
Is this in the same house we were in?
It's another house.
A network of tunnels and bunkers extends beneath
much of this village.
I've never seen anything like this.
The warren is used by members of 'Ndrangheta to escape
if the police are spotted entering the village.
This is totally and utterly surreal, but absolutely, sickeningly
ingenious, at the same time.
Tunnels lead off tunnels, lead off chambers -
it's like Alice in Wonderland meets Narcos.
HE LAUGHS
Are you all right, mate?
What the hell are we doing?!
Come to the Mediterranean, go to a beach!
THEY LAUGH
What is that?
Drainage.
What, you're in the sewer?
Of course, so as soon as they can get into here,
they can move around the whole town.
In all, the Cacciatore have discovered 400 underground
hiding places and bunkers across this region, some big enough
for vehicles to drive through, allowing fugitives to evade
capture for years.
These people are fanatical.
This is a community who's done this.
How the hell do you combat an enemy that is prepared to go
to these lengths?
In desperation, the Italian state is using the Cacciatore.
Trained in counterinsurgency, the squad includes veterans
from foreign battlefields and counterterrorism
operations abroad.
Now they conduct investigations and intense surveillance
on 'Ndrangheta targets in their own country.
Now things get a bit trickier.
It was three in the morning, and I was being allowed to join
one of their current operations.
So, we're being taken on a live surveillance mission.
We need to travel without noise, without lights.
We'll be using infrared night vision, and we need to get to
an observation position that's about a half-hour hike away.
WHISPERING: We are really in the heart of Mafia territory.
My heart is really starting to tick and bounce.
We've come out, we're on top of the town.
This is where they are looking at the moment for wanted
'Ndrangheta fugitives.
And why do you focus on the son and the wife of the fugitive?
OK.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely mind-blowing, to me, that you predicted
they would be coming back from the football around now.
Yeah. And all of a sudden, all the cars started appearing.
Amazing.
They wake up late in the morning.
They don't work, they don't start, they don't do anything.
They see only one opportunity, they see only one way to live.
Crime.
In this area, anything out of the ordinary
gets their attention.
It's noted.
And that's how they build up intelligence on what the hell
is going on, and how they ultimately catch people.
The Cacciatore have their work cut out.
The 'Ndrangheta is actually growing in power, spreading internationally.
Listening to the experts, this felt more like part
of a failed narco-state than the toe of one of Europe's great nations.
In the glorious light of day, the problems facing this part
of the Mediterranean felt even more surreal.
It's time to head on.
I've got a train to catch.
The 'Ndrangheta's corruption of the region is partly why
it's one of the least-known and least-visited corners
of the whole country.
What a beautiful part of the world this is.
Look, on that whole beach...
..two sunbathers!
I was getting off the train at the small town of Brancaleone,
at the most southerly tip of the Italian mainland,
but I wasn't heading far.
So, what is just about the last thing you would expect to find
in a train station?
A turtle rescue centre, perhaps?
Buon giorno! Buon giorno!
Filippo?
Simon. Filippo. Very nice to meet you. Tania? Ciao!
Hi, very nice to see you too. Buon giorno.
Filippo and Tania have refashioned this old ticket office to help
save some of the Med's most incredible sea life.
HE GASPS
Oh, my goodness, look at the size of you!
How has he lost so much of his flipper?
So, how much of a problem is plastic to the turtles, then?
All of this was in Raoul?
Oh, my God!
I haven't seen such clear evidence of the consequences
of the modern world for marine life.
Look!
This is astonishing!
This is a packet of pasta, for goodness' sake!
I feel your emotion. I feel it, too, I really do.
It's needle-sharp.
Look, you big beastie!
Parrot-beak of a mouth comes open, snaffles it straight down.
Raoul's made it to 30 years old, breeding age,
a milestone only one in 1,000 turtles ever reach.
We are here on such a special day,
because Raoul is about to be released.
Hold down?
OK.
So, 5065 is going to be you, Raoul.
How far did you have to look to find turtle leggings?
Life in the Med faces increasing threats
from pollution and overfishing.
Over the past 50 years, marine mammals have collapsed
by almost half.
More than 90% of fish stocks studied are overexploited.
Oh, my goodness!
Raoul's keen to go!
The Med faces a catastrophe without more protection
and conservation like this.
Tania, are you going to miss him?
Look, his flippers are going already!
He swims! He's going!
Aww!
SHE SOBS
Thank you!
Thank you, on behalf of everyone!
What an incredible moment that is!
I wonder where he is now?
Swimming off, hopefully looking for a mate.
He's been in a tank for a couple of months,
he's of breeding age and he's probably quite horny!
Let's hope he produces a few more offspring,
because, my God, the Med needs it.
I continued my journey, close to the Mediterranean,
across Italy's deep south.
It's just empty, abandoned factory after abandoned factory here.
This region, like much of Mediterranean Europe,
from southern Spain right through to Greece,
is enduring economic meltdown.
The global financial crisis was followed by the Euro crisis.
People here are still suffering.
Unemployment is double the EU average here.
Youth unemployment is running at more than 55%.
Look at this place.
Can we stop, can we stop here?
It's one of the most deprived areas in Europe.
This is a sad sight, isn't it?
With the locked gates here.
There must have been a couple of hundred people working here,
and then one day they're all turfed out of their jobs.
It's part of the tragedy, really, of southern Italy,
I think, where there's been generations of underinvestment
in this part of the country.
There's no better illustration of the depths of poverty
in southern Italy than the place I was heading to next.
In living memory, thousands of residents in the town of Matera
were so poor they lived in damp, dark caves.
People were living in the caves here until the 1950s,
when the Italian Prime Minister declared this poverty
a national scandal, and everybody was moved out,
forcibly moved out of the caves, into public housing,
and so a whole way of life ended.
Matera is now turning its once shameful caves into an asset.
Many of them are being refashioned as holiday homes and fancy hotels.
Marco? Yeah, it's me!
This is your cave. This is my...
Look at this!
It's astonishing!
This was a home?
Family share the house with donkeys, cow, big animals.
People lived with their animals inside the cave?
Flipping heck!
I sense that you're turning this from something that is shameful
or embarrassing, or people feel that way about it,
into something to be incredibly proud of.
Exactly. We start to understand that there is a way to live again.
We need to be proud of this.
Isn't it totally spectacular?
Something and somewhere I won't ever forget.
I'm going to enjoy a good night's sleep tonight,
I think.
Ahhh...
Wow!
I mean, look at this.
This is almost biblical.
Come on, now!
Matera isn't following the script of southern Italy's decline.
Oh, look, Italian wedding!
CHEERING
Fantastic.
What a completely splendid sight!
Any wedding, anything like this, it represents rejuvenation,
regeneration.
It's so good to see, because too many towns and villages
in southern Italy have been completely depopulated
in recent generations, but here, this has got a future.
Aww!
It's beautiful!
So, we were in the toe of Italy, now we're in the arch,
and we're heading for the heel.
And Italy's heel belongs to the region of Puglia,
one of the country's most picturesque and productive
farming areas.
Oh, wow!
Out there, this is the Adriatic bit of the Mediterranean.
Pretty spectacular, eh?
Goodness, so these are all olive trees down here.
Thousands and thousands of them.
Puglia is the absolute heart of Italy's olive oil industry,
producing more than 50% of the country's entire output.
I met up with a plant pathologist called Margherita D'Amico,
who's in love with the olive tree.
Margherita, how old do you think this one would be?
2,000 years old? Yep.
Do you ever just give them a hug?
THEY LAUGH
What about a little cuddle? Ah, si, si, si!
But the soul of the people of Puglia is threatened.
Olive trees here are facing a catastrophe.
The region is ground zero for a deadly disease,
called Xylella.
Next day, Margherita took me to the front line.
These trees, what's happening to them?
It's completely dry and dead.
Si.
This is so serious, some call the disease
the olive tree Ebola.
To stop it spreading, authorities advise farmers
to set up containment zones.
This is horrific, this is hundreds of trees
that have been chopped down.
Government scientists say all the trees in a 100-metre radius
of those affected needs to be removed.
It could mean a million or more of Puglia's olive trees
are destroyed.
Olive trees and production around much of the Mediterranean
is now threatened.
Many locals here vehemently disagree with the containment policy.
Margherita is among the respected scientists who think it's a mistake.
A final decision on how to deal with Xylella in Italy
still hasn't been taken.
I went to meet one of the farmers whose whole livelihood
hangs in the balance.
Buona sera. Simon.
Very nice to meet you.
Chicco Minnelli is 82.
He and his wife Anna have been farming olive trees
their whole lives.
What have you been told about what the disease
will do to your trees?
HIS VOICE CRACKS
HE SOBS
It does sound like a very violent response
to the situation, doesn't it?
Xylella has now also been found in Spain.
Half the world's olive oil is now said to be threatened.
For people around the Mediterranean, where an enormous number
of families depend on olive trees, this could be a total disaster.
I was headed on to the Italian port of Brindisi.
I was catching a ferry across the Adriatic.
Oh, this is me.
Ta-da!
Look!
It's a double bed, for goodness' sake.
Ahh...
That's not bad.
Really looking forward to this part of the journey
around the Mediterranean.
This boat, this ship is going to take me across the water
to a country that was really cut off from the outside world
until very recently.
Albania.
It's only 60 miles from Italy, but Albania is one of the least-known
corners of the Med...
..only now emerging into the light,
after decades of dictatorship, isolation and chaos.
Morning, Albania.
So, we've had a cup of tea, a bit of breakfast, with Vlad.
Four what?
You're buzzing!
You've had some coffee-Viagra?
Interesting, Vlad!
It's looking pretty good, isn't it?
Look, this has all been redone and renovated recently.
Come on.
Look at the view!
Albania!
For four decades until his death in 1985,
Albania was in the iron grip of Enver Hoxha,
a dictator so hard-line he fell out with
the Soviet Union because they weren't communist enough.
This country was so cut off, for so long.
Life under the dictatorship here was pretty harsh for people.
There were political prisoners, there were assassinations
and executions, and there was terrible poverty.
Private ownership of cars was banned.
Even the number of chickens that a family could have was controlled.
At one point, the secret police here were said to have a quarter
of the population under surveillance.
No wonder this was known as the North Korea of Europe.
You have to know, if someone directs the antenna in the direction
of Italy, at the time, morning, next morning,
someone from the police would come to take you in questions.
They kill without judgment in the prisons.
Many political prisoners.
One of them, it was my grandfather.
Your grandfather was a political prisoner?
He died in prison?
Yeah, he died in prison.
We yet don't know where is his body.
We don't know.
Wow.
Under Hoxha's dictatorship, the Mediterranean became a moat.
Travel in or out of the country was almost completely banned.
The remains of this fortress mentality can still be seen
all over Albania.
These are a real feature of Albania.
There are anything up to 700,000 or 800,000,
perhaps, of these bunkers across the country.
They used the building of these bunkers as a means
of really drawing the country together
against an unspecified foreign enemy.
You can get a sense of, God, the claustrophobic paranoia
that you would feel inside the bunker,
and inside the country, I think, actually, as well.
So cut off, so closed.
So, this was an old Albanian Navy base, and in the chaos that followed
the collapse of the dictatorship here, places like this,
military facilities, were ransacked of almost everything
they contained, but particularly hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of weapons.
After the fall of communism in the 1990s, the economy collapsed,
and the country descended into chaos.
With Vlad behind the wheel, fuelled by a few more coffees,
we headed to the far north.
Here, Albania's post-communist anarchy had often
tragic consequences.
We're coming into an area of the country now where life,
for many, is governed by an ancient code.
When the rule of law collapsed here, it left a void.
Many people turned back to a centuries-old code,
known as the Kanun.
In the city of Shkodra, I met up with local teacher,
Liljana Luani.
Can you tell us what is the Kanun?
So, it's an eye for an eye, a murder should result in another,
should be avenged by another murder?
It's quite hard to comprehend, really, because, looking around,
But it sounds like what you're talking about is a much
more medieval aspect of the country that perhaps is a bit more hidden
under the surface.
The Kanun is thought to have played a part in hundreds of murders
in modern Albania.
Families find themselves locked in so-called blood feuds
for generations.
Liljana, where are we going?
Are you saying that children get caught up in the blood feuds,
that they can't leave their houses?
This is horrific.
If he left his house, what could happen to him?
We're on our way to see him now.
We're not going to be able to show you his face,
or where he lives, but hopefully we'll be able to hear
a little bit of his story.
All right, let's get the camera down.
Marko, are you all right with talking to us?
How long have you been in the house?
Are we talking years?
Do you have to stay in the house,
or are you able to go into the garden as well?
Marko, which isn't his real name, is part of a family locked
in two blood feuds.
His father is in jail for a murder.
If Marko leaves the house, he could be murdered in revenge
by the family of his father's victim.
Can you talk us through your day?
What would you most like to do in life, Marko?
Do you see a time in the future when this blood feud could end?
Well, Marko is a very shy young lad, not surprisingly,
given that he's basically in almost solitary confinement.
He's a shadow of the teenager he could be.
It's just completely obscene.
An adult commits a crime, and a child can be killed for it?
What sort of place does this have in a country that's in talks
to join the European Union, for goodness' sake?
It's completely heartbreaking, it really is.
Prison.
Life around the Mediterranean was proving much more extreme
than I'd ever expected.
As I neared the end of the first part of my journey,
I headed back towards Albania's coast.
Albania has perhaps the greatest system of wetlands
in the entire Mediterranean.
It's an absolutely crucial rest stop for birds that are crossing
the Mediterranean Sea.
The largest and most important of these coastal lagoons
is Karavasta National Park.
Look at this!
It is completely enormous!
A critical habitat for an incredible 250 species of birds,
many of them threatened by hunting around the Mediterranean.
I met up with a heroic conservationist called Ardian Koci,
the park's director.
Morning!
Pelicans? You have pelicans in the park?
Wow!
What a beautiful creature.
To see something that large in flight is a real treasure.
Oh, my goodness!
It's a whole island of pelicans.
Brilliant!
What do you love about them?
They're really crammed onto their little islands there,
but they seem to get on OK.
They share parental responsibility?
Around the Mediterranean...
Pelican incoming!
..tens, possibly hundreds of millions of birds are hunted
every year. In Egypt and Lebanon,
birds are slaughtered in their millions.
Even inside the European Union, where nature laws should protect
vulnerable species, it's a scandal.
Italy is one of the worst offenders.
In Albania, guns are in plentiful supply,
and hunting was a huge threat, but then in 2014, the government
here set an example to the rest of the Mediterranean and banned
outright all hunting.
What was life like here before the hunting ban?
How important was the ban?
They tried to bribe you?
Very brave, and that's what it takes.
Here, OK?
OK.
What's the reason for putting the buoys out?
So, we are protecting the pelicans.
OK. OK?
Same on here.
Here?
The biggest battle to safeguard these wetlands may still lie ahead.
Albania, naturally enough, wants a slice of the Med's massive
tourist industry, with all the investment and jobs
that go with it.
There is a plan for a colossal resort to be built here,
on a scale rarely seen around the Mediterranean.
It would start roughly ten miles in that direction...
..and it will completely transform the national park.
The future of Karavasta National Park is still to be decided,
but there is hope.
With its hunting ban, Albania has already shown
it can take tough decisions to protect the environment,
and the wonder of the Mediterranean.
So, this is the end of the first part of my journey
around the Mediterranean.
Next time, I'll be starting in Cyprus, and heading on to Lebanon
and the Middle East.
I'll see the Med like never before...
That's not where we're you going?
Yes, we are going there.
..and discover a region enduring conflict and division.
So, it's a fully active, combat-ready patrol? Yeah.
Look at the barrier that encircles Gaza.