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Maspalomas: Tourists having sex on the beach is destroying it


(CNN) — Overtourism is commonly blamed for choking historic cities, masking world-famous sights in trash, and killing native life in vacationer hotspots internationally. Now vacationers having intercourse is claimed to be behind the gradual destruction of a seashore and nature reserve in Europe.

The Dunas de Maspalomas Particular Nature Reserve, on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria, is thought for its wild sand dunes rippling out behind its lighthouse perched on the seafront, and commonly tops the lists of issues to see on the island.

Its dunes — which have been legally protected since 1982 — are one of many final remaining shifting dune methods in Europe, present a resting spot for birds migrating between Africa and Europe.

However now it is offering a special type of relaxation spot, with vacationers taking to the dunes to get frisky.

A brand new paper within the Journal of Environmental Management — “Sand, Solar, Sea and Intercourse with Strangers, the ‘5 S’s. Characterizing ‘cruising’ exercise and its environmental impacts on a protected coastal dunefield” — seems for the primary time on the environmental influence on the coastal reserve getting used as a cruising space.

Researchers inventoried 298 “intercourse spots” on the seashore, over a complete space of over two sq. miles, primarily amongst “bushy and dense vegetation” and nebkhas — dunes that wad up round vegetation. They studied them throughout Might 2018, a interval which included the native Homosexual Pleasure pageant.

The vacationers’ intercourse, and “cruiser trampling,” impacts “straight” not solely on the nebkhas, but in addition on eight native plant species, three of that are endemic, they discovered.

Intercourse ‘nests’ within the dunes

The dunes at Maspalomas are a top draw on Gran Canaria.

The dunes at Maspalomas are a prime draw on Gran Canaria.

Giulio Andreini/UCG/Common Pictures Group/Getty Pictures

Vacationers trample over the vegetation, take away vegetation and sand, make their very own “nests” — even fencing them off — and dump waste together with cigarettes, condoms, rest room paper, wipes and cans.

In addition they use the dunes as a bathroom, with researchers discovering “urination and defecation areas.”

The extra distant the intercourse spot is, the extra it had been used and the extra trash was left in it, researchers observed. Though the authorities depart trash baggage in among the bigger areas, they had been usually full.

Even the dunes’ “exclusion zone” — which is totally off-limits to the general public, the place different areas are restricted — was discovered to have 56 intercourse spots.

On account of the vacationers’ actions, there was a “full abandonment” of environmental training within the reserve, in keeping with the research. The reserve was initially created with training as a “major exercise.”

What’s extra, Gran Canaria big lizards — a preferred sight within the Canary islands — have “died after consuming condoms left behind by pleasure seekers,” wrote Patrick Hesp, one of many report’s authors, in an article for The Conversation.

Internet hosting as much as 14 million guests a 12 months, Gran Canaria is a gay-friendly vacationer vacation spot, with guests from the US, UK and Germany among the many foremost markets, and whereas the authors are fast to emphasise that there’s “no intention to criticize among the LGBTI neighborhood,” and pressured that it was not simply LGBTQ guests having intercourse within the dunes, they observe that “cruising is brazenly practiced” on Maspalomas.

Coastal dune methods are a vital a part of the marine panorama, however have been used to draw tourism around the globe — with devastating penalties, the authors write.

“Their degradation, in lots of instances, has been a direct consequence of tourism improvement,” reads the paper.

As Hesp wrote in his separate article: “We’re not calling for an finish to public intercourse — however we do need folks to concentrate on the injury it may possibly do.”

One couple having intercourse on the seashore, he wrote, is one factor; however having tons of converge on the identical space every single day damages the dunes as a lot as off-road driving does.



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