Defy the trends proposed by local marine biologists.
In 2018, the Maldives, a country of nearly 1,200 islands in the Arabian Sea, continued to transform into a gorgeous tourist destination. This suggests that it is “not aesthetically appealing,” a national handbook for resort developers called Seagrass Meadows in the country's shallow lagoon. “It was very important from a tourist's perspective that sea grass growth was eliminated.” The island resort was known to suffocate pastures with vast plastic sheets on the seabed to provide visitors with endless sandy bottoms to aquamarine waters. Sea grass pastures should not be bothered by being an important ecosystem for marine life and nearby coral reefs, or capturing substantial amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
However, at Sive Senses Laamu Resort in 94-Villa, a Maldives biologist wanted to “issu a statement.”
Instead of killing the grass in the sea, the resort encouraged it to flourish, saying that now there is a lagoon of “different shades of green and dark blue, rather merely monotonous crystals.” Sea grass has become a draw that steps into the resort above others in the area as it attracts the resort's wildlife to the ocean surrounding the resort's overwater bungalows. Sun loungers on the deck.
There's little need to explain about the “perfect” tropical beach. Instagram posts can be found on the travel magazine page. It offers fine white sand, coconut palm trees, gentle sloped beaches overhead, and unobstructed views of the ocean. However, in many cases, the beaches are fully manufactured, especially in tourist areas.
Today, many beach resorts around the world are embracing beachscapes in a more natural state. In particular, focusing on native vegetation planted or preserved between coastlines and buildings, as well as healthy overall ecosystems, will enhance natural defenses against changing climates and habitats for native species. Provides. A week of vacation.
The 20 bungalow Playa Viva Resort on Mexico's Pacific Coast has been part of the real estate spirit since it opened in 2008. The resort does not emphasize the ocean views from the bungalows, so instead depicts the ocean views. There are about 10 native plants used by Playaviva as the basis for this basis. Among them are versatile sea grapes with their robust root systems, twisted branches, bushes, shrubs, or large round leaves that can be pruned as trees. The vegetation dose between each bungalow and sand serves as the primary defense of the Playa Viva buildings on the coast, which offers privacy and sees the share of the big storm.
“The conscious design was something I thought was added to the experience,” says Alexandra, a 37-year-old marketing executive in Miami who booked a three-night trip for how Playa Viva was designed and built. Avila said.
Two resorts under development in the area hired Amanda Harris, a permaculture specialist who is responsible for designing many of the Playa Viva landscapings, to discuss their native beachscapes.
“What each of these projects has in common is creating a resilient ecosystem while immersing guests in the luxury of nature,” Harris said.
At the sea
In tropical and subtropical climates, seaside developers have replicated artificial beaches since European seaside resort models replaced tropical models in the middle of the last century. There is a complex ecosystem, especially in the expected versions of mangroves, sea grasses, and shaded trees. Often the white sandy beach itself.
Around the world, the results have often been devastating due to coastline protection against oceans.
“If you have a beach that was once, you can clean up the mangroves, turn it into sand and plant your coconut palms and you've lost lots of structures, really intricate and woven structures,” says Scott F. Jones said, a coastal ecologist at the University of North Florida. “Your protection from storm surges will essentially disappear, and your resilience to sea level rise will also increase.”
Six Sense Ram Resort in the Maldives launched a campaign with the Blue Marine Foundation, allowing the sea grass to flourish by acquiring other resorts in the country. A quarter of them have worked to preserve at least 80% of the sea grass. The latest version of the country's handbook for resort developers, released in 2023, has removed the language that calls Seagrass “aesthetically unattractive.”
On the land
On track and field, coconut palms are almost ubiquitous and have several advantages. Coconut is an exquisite natural container of water and food, with fibers that can be used in ropes and weaving products.
However, on modern coastlines, these trees have little use to prevent sand erosion and blockage, offering a scarce tint that is an increasingly valuable item in a warm world. They are also non-native to many of the world's most popular beach destinations. When Christopher Columbus first landed in America, today was an island part of the Bahamas, and the Caribbean had no coconut palms. Europeans will bring them later.
The song from Cambodia's Saa Private Island Resort blends into a diverse range of vegetation regenerated from scratch after a line of small islands previously settled for fishing surgery. The resort repotted everything, including mangroves, using samples from nearby islands, and regenerated everything. 24 rooms were then constructed around the reclaimed landscape, not the opposite way.
Sonsaa owner Merita Kulmans is particularly passionate about the mangrove forests of the area. “These forests are one of the most effective carbon-raising ecosystems on the planet and are essential to the surrounding ecosystems, as they stop erosion of the coastline,” she said.
Such efforts can become part of a larger conservation project. Iberastal, a Spanish hotel brand that operates more than 85 coastal resorts around the world, has been transforming native vegetation into policy since 2017. As part of a larger sustainability project, we planted over 16,000 mangroves throughout the property. In many instances, Iberastal's Choice Albafera Resort, located in Mallorca, Spain, which opened in 2023, prioritized native vegetation that requires little water and reduced the overall water use of the facility.
Other efforts are not voluntary, and in some resorts, they restore native vegetation not by choice but by law. In early 2024, Sandpiper Bay Resort in Port St. Lucie, Florida was ordered to plant 2,800 mangrove trees on its site after cutting nearly 1,000 without permission. Wyndham, which owns the resort, did not return a request for comment.
Playa Viva permaculture specialist Amanda Harris points out that in addition to protecting the coastline, a diverse range of vegetation can serve multiple purposes. It creates privacy between rooms, shade for guests in hot climates, and a more interesting overall aesthetic. As she said, visitors “stand in nature and flow between nature and the world built.”
The ocean is just part of the equation.
“It doesn't have to be this panoramic view,” she said, adding that it could be “what we call a view window on the beach.”
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