About the station
Why Ohrid Watch exists
Lake Ohrid is one of the oldest lakes on Earth — a UNESCO World Heritage site shared by North Macedonia and Albania. Its water hosts species found nowhere else, including the endangered Ohrid trout. The site is currently under review by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, and the decisions made this year will shape what the lake looks like for decades.
On paper, the lake is protected. In practice, monitoring has real gaps. There is no reliable public count of remaining Ohrid trout. Illegal construction along the shoreline is documented mostly through news reports. Pollution events are logged unevenly. Ghost nets and out-of-season fishing are frequently reported but rarely mapped.
Ohrid Watch is a simple tool for closing that gap in a small, transparent way: a public log of geotagged photo reports from people on the ground. Citizens, journalists, researchers, and local officials all get the same view.
What this is
- An independent community project.
- A public record of environmental conditions and threats.
- A dataset anyone can inspect, filter, and share.
What this is not
- Not run by the government, UNESCO, or any lake authority.
- Not a verified enforcement tool. Data is user-submitted.
- Not for accusing individuals. Reports document places and conditions, never named people.
If you're on the lake — swimming, walking, fishing, guiding, working — you can help build the record.