What Happens When We Don’t Pay Attention to Nature?

 

Recent natural events in our country — floods, landslides, and severe damage to roads, including newly built ones — compel us to ask a fundamental question:

What happens when we don’t pay attention to nature?

This question is no longer theoretical or rhetorical. It has become tangible, visible in our daily reality, and costly.

When we treat nature as an obstacle rather than a partner in development, the consequences appear in a chain:

First, nature “bills” us.

Floods, landslides, and infrastructure collapses show that ignoring geological, hydrological, and climatic characteristics is not just a technical mistake — it is a systemic risk.

Second, development becomes fragile and short-lived.

Investments that disregard landscape, terrain, and natural cycles create an illusion of progress. Roads damaged within months, buildings threatened by intense rainfall, and entire areas becoming uninhabitable show that development without nature is development against itself.

Third, the cost rises — economic, social, and human.

Continuous repairs, repeated emergencies, displacement of communities, and loss of safety strain public budgets and undermine public trust. The worst: time is lost, safety is lost, and in extreme cases, lives are lost.

In many cases, these events are not merely “natural disasters.” They reflect accumulated decisions over time: building without respecting terrain, diverting natural water flows, ignoring geological warnings, and prioritizing speed over sustainability. Yet water always finds its way, and land always reacts when overloaded beyond its capacity.

At its core: development without nature is development against itself. When we fail to manage territory wisely, territory begins to manage us — through continuous crises.

This reality calls for a fundamental shift. These events should serve as a wake-up call:

• from reaction → to prevention;
• from “build fast” → to “build in harmony”;
• from isolated engineering solutions → to nature-based solutions;
• from short-term thinking → to long-term territorial resilience.

We are very late to change the course of civic and governance behavior, in the construction sector and management of natural phenomena,  without consequences, but we are not too late to act.

Action must begin today, because tomorrow will be even later.

Nature does not negotiate. It responds — always proportionally to the attention we give it. Crises do not wait. They respond directly to how we treat land, water, and ecosystems.

Delay is no longer neutral. It is a choice.

— Luiza Hoxhaj