{"id":3940,"date":"2018-10-03T08:43:13","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T08:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icleiseas.org\/?p=3940"},"modified":"2018-10-03T08:43:13","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T08:43:13","slug":"thailand-bay-made-famous-by-the-beach-closed-indefinitely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/2018\/10\/03\/thailand-bay-made-famous-by-the-beach-closed-indefinitely\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand bay made famous by The Beach closed indefinitely"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the world\u2019s most popular beaches, made famous by the 2000 film The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio<\/span><\/a>, is to be closed indefinitely to allow it to recover from the damage caused by millions of tourists.<\/p>\n

The golden sands and crystal blue water of Maya Bay, ringed by cliffs on Ko Phi Phi Leh island, has become one of Thailand\u2019s most-visited tourist destinations since it shot to fame as the movie\u2019s location.<\/p>\n

The small beach has sustained extensive environmental damage in recent years, receiving up to 5,000 tourists and 200 boats a day.<\/p>\n

Thai authorities announced they would be temporarily closing the bay from 1 June, but have now extended the planned four-month closure to at least a year, due to the extent of the destruction caused by the thousands of day-trippers.<\/p>\n

Thanks to pollution from litter, boats and sun cream, it is estimated that more than 80% of the coral around Maya Bay has been destroyed.<\/p>\n

Songtam Suksawang, the director of the national parks department, said: \u201cWe have evaluated each month and found out that the ecological system was seriously destroyed from tourism of up to 5,000 people daily.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to remedy and rehabilitate because its beach was completely destroyed as well the plants which cover it,\u201d he said, adding that it was \u201cimpossible\u201d for recovery to occur in the allotted time.<\/p>\n

Despite evidence of the mounting damage<\/span><\/a> to Maya Bay, for years, Thai authorities had been reluctant to shut it, because the location generates about 400 million baht (\u00a39.5m) in revenue a year.<\/p>\n

However, a royal gazette published on 1 October by Thailand\u2019s department of national parks, wildlife and plant conservation announced the restrictions on tourism would not be lifted until the ecosystem \u201cfully recovers to a normal situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The news will come as a relief to local environmental campaigners, who had said a four-month closure was not nearly enough. Coral only grows about half a centimeter a year, so it will take years for the reef to be fully restored.<\/p>\n

The Maya Bay park chief, Worapoj Lomlim, said the parks agency and others had already rehabilitated coral reefs in the bay by planting more than 1,000 corals and would keep expanding the project.<\/p>\n

Countries across the region from the Philippines to Indonesia are waking up to the problems that can be caused by excessive tourism.<\/p>\n

In April, the Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte,\u00a0announced\u00a0a six-month closure<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of the Boracay beach resort,\u00a0calling the destination a \u201ccesspool\u201d.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Indonesia declared a \u201cgarbage emergency\u201d last year along with a stretch of the island of Bali after\u00a0coastal pollution was highlighted<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in a viral video that showed a diver swimming through water full of rubbish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the world\u2019s most popular beaches, made famous by the 2000 film The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is to be closed indefinitely to allow it to recover from the damage caused by millions of tourists. The golden sands and crystal blue water of Maya Bay, ringed by cliffs on Ko Phi Phi Leh island, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3941,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions\/3941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}