Maya Bay is the iconic bay of Thailand. It is one of the most mesmerizing piece of land and water on Earth. It is the very bay that was seen in Leonardo DiCaprio’s film “the beach”.
However, now Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) has announced that the bay would be closed for the tourists for indefinite time period.
Why is it closed?
The beach and its ecosystem have been badly affected by the overcrowding of the tourists. The bay got immense attention and visitors after the film “the beach” was released.
People from around the world could not resist to visit the beauty itself and therefore folks from around the globe would come to get mesmerized by the bay.
However, none: the people and the authority could keep the environment intact.
The DNP Director Songtam Suksawang, said that their per month evaluation shows that each day 5,000 visitors tend to affect (indeed destroy) the ecological system.
Recovery and rehabilitation would be a difficult task as the beach is completely destroyed and so are the plants which covered it.
DNP adviser Thon Thamrongnawasawat told that the beach cannot be shut down for tourism forever, we shall reopen it, but for the time we need to save our sea.
According to a report by the Guardian, the litter, boats, and sunscreen have destroyed more than 80% of the coral of the Maya Bay. This is also because the huge number of visitors tend to come on a daily basis and it becomes difficult to monitor them all.
DNP reported that in 2018 the bay had more than 2.5 million visitors.
Will it reopen?
Even though no particular date of reopening has been announced, yet reports say that it would take a while. This is because the authorities want to fully recover the beach and would only reopen when the corals grow. It might take a year as corals take a year to grow by centimeter.
We will have to wait until the ecosystem recovers, for this is the cost of our own damages.
