Across the eight-square-mile island of steep, mostly undeveloped hills and stunning aquamarine bays, it’s easy to find a modest villa with a view of the water for US$20 to US$40 a night, or splurge on a sea-view house with a pool for US$150 or more a night. There are no traffic lights on Koh Tao, no international five-star resorts; building height is capped at six meters, or two stories, well below the tops of coconut palms, and Jet Skis are not allowed.
During the height of the pandemic, Vie Boursmui and other Thai and foreign diving instructors had time on their hands and the government’s marine resources department gave them permission to start eight coral restoration projects around the island. Vie, an instructor for more than 20 years, worked for three months in Aow Leuk Bay with other divers taking naturally detached pieces of coral and fastening them to submerged concrete blocks and metal frames that eventually will be encrusted in new coral formations.
Climate change has killed most of the coral in the warm shallows, he said, so the divers set up some 600 yards of coral plantations in cooler water 10 to 15 meters below the surface.
“The nature brings the customers,” said Vie, as groups of divers from Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, Israel and Spain filled the tables at Ban’s Diving Resort for a post-scuba sunset drink. “So we must protect the nature.”
A hub for reimagining life and tourism on the island sits nearby on the leafy, palm-fringed north end of Sairee Beach in an area locals call Soi Island. Bronzed and relaxed visitors perused the vegan menus at the Factory and VegetaBowl restaurants, browsed the handmade soaps and coasters made from recycled plastic at May & Co, carried stand-up paddle boards from Evasion water sports into the gleaming sea, sweated on yoga mats at Untamed Wellness Studio and trained for freediving at Apnea Total.
During the pandemic, when islanders had time to do regular cleanups of the beaches and the sea, the heaps of plastic gave Witchuda Damnoenyut, who goes by May, an idea. She bought a plastic shredder, melting machine and molds, and started turning detritus into coasters, game blocks, soap dishes and even medals for the island’s first mountain trails marathon last May.
She opened her Plas Tao workshop last year and sells the recycled goods in her May & Co handicrafts and natural soaps shop, as well as to other green-minded businesses, like vegetarian restaurants and the EcoTao Lodge in the hills.
“I feel like the Koh Tao community does a lot compared to other parts of Thailand,” Witchuda said, as her sole worker banged out molds on a bench and workers with a screaming metal saw turned an empty storefront across the street into a weed and wine bar. “Independent businesses try a lot to attract people by becoming more eco.”
Down the street from May & Co where the grey brick walking path is lined with low-slung bungalows, dive shops, open-air restaurants and bamboo beach bars under the shade of palm trees, Rene Hagen was helping customers take standup paddleboards for a sunset glide off Sairee Beach.
Hagen, from Denmark, and his American wife, Rachel Yaseen, took over Evasion, an outdoor sports company, in May after bicycling around the world for 3 1/2 years and wanting a place to rest. She opened Untamed yoga studio a couple doors down, and they bought three sea-view villas in the hills on the south side of the island to rent out during the high seasons.
“It’s hard to say what’s not to like – there’s a huge variety of good restaurants and it’s affordable; the diving here is so super-easy and chill, and from the villa we can sit in the pool and see the turtles and the sharks,” Hagen said. “And the hiking here is definitely challenging, because of the steep hills.”
Evasion also offers tubing and wakeboarding, and he’s turning their boat into a solar-powered craft so it gives tourists a quiet ride and doesn’t harm the coral. He also has on order eight electric bicycles, and is in the process of getting their villas powered by solar panels and looking into renting electric motorbikes.
EcoTao, which opened on a steep, forested hill just months before the pandemic cut off tourism in March 2020, is perhaps the island’s only actual eco accommodation, where the 12 bungalows are made of bamboo and teak, most of the power comes from 100 solar panels, and rainwater is collected for showers.
Founder Yves Frangioni, a French entrepreneur and sportsman who moved to the island 16 years ago, believes the eco trend might be starting to catch on with tourists and businesses.
“We opened in December and we are busy always,” he said in a phone interview on his way to France for a couple of months. “I hope that many start like me, because it’s important for the small island, the planet, everything.”
By Patrick Scott © The New York Times Company
The article originally appeared in The New York Times.
