At the Song Saa Private Island resort in Cambodia, the few palm trees blend into diverse vegetation that has been regenerated from the ground up, after the small island on which it sits was previously cleared for a fishing operation. The resort replanted and regrew everything, including mangroves, using samples from nearby islands. The 24 rooms were then constructed around the regenerated landscape instead of the other way around.
Song Saa’s owner, Melita Koulmandas, is particularly passionate about the area’s mangrove forests. “These forests are vital to the surrounding ecosystems, as they are one of the most effective carbon-capture ecosystems on Earth; plus, they stop erosion of the coastlines,” she said.
Such efforts can sometimes become part of a larger preservation project. Iberostar, a Spanish hotel brand that runs more than 85 coastal resorts around the world, has turned native vegetation into policy since 2017. It has planted more than 16,000 mangroves across its properties as part of a larger sustainability project. In one example of many, its Iberostar Selection Albufera Resort on the Spanish island of Mallorca, which opened in 2023, prioritised native vegetation that requires little water, reducing the property’s overall water use.
Other efforts are less voluntary, with some resorts restoring native vegetation not by choice but by law. In early 2024, the Sandpiper Bay Resort in Port St Lucie, Florida, was ordered to plant 2,800 mangrove trees on its property after cutting down nearly 1,000 of them without a permit. Wyndham, which owns the resort, did not return requests for comment.
Harris, the permaculture specialist at Playa Viva, notes that diverse vegetation can serve multiple purposes in addition to shoreline protection. It creates privacy between the rooms, shade for guests in a hot climate and a more interesting overall aesthetic, which, as she put it, invites visitors “to step into nature, to flow between the natural and built world.”
The ocean is just part of the equation.
“It doesn’t have to be this panoramic view,” she said, adding that it can be “what we call windows of sight onto the beach.”
By Sarah Stodola © The New York Times.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
