PALOMINO, COLOMBIA — Sandbags and seawalls have proven feeble against the hunger of the sea as it devours the beach in this Caribbean coastal town. (Photo by Jeff McMahon)
PALOMINO, COLOMBIA — A brief hike east or west from this Caribbean coastal town reveals long expanses of light gray sand, pounded by waves, backed by lofty coconut palms, hoary mangroves and wild forests that stretch into the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
But in the town itself, once the site of beach volleyball tournaments, little sand remains.
A sea wall in Palomino, only a few years old, has failed to hold back the rising seas. (Photo by Jeff McMahon)
Most studies blame hotel and resort developers who removed mangroves, leaving picturesque expenses of sand with open views of the sea under the palms. But the palms and the mangroves, it turned out, had a symbiotic relationship. Without the mangroves’ sand-grabbing roots, the sea reclaimed the sand, undermining the palms until they toppled onto the vanishing beach.
Then the sea marched on, consuming bars, restaurants, and bungalows, undermining the foundations of hotels.
All of this within a few short years. Google images from 2018 show the beach intact.
Workers try to repair a crumbling sea wall that protects a hotel bar as the waves continue to encroach. (Photo by Jeff McMahon)
As the sea swallowed their property, some proprietors responded with seawalls, sandbags, and breakwaters assembled from massive tractor tires. But the sea, with the patience of geologic time, has begun to pound those to rubble.
Some of the erosion can be attributed to sea-level rise—NOAA estimates global sea levels have already risen several inches since the mid-1990s—and Colombia can expect sea level to rise along its coast up to two feet more by 2050, according to NOAA and US AID.
Colombia may be previewing the fate of beaches the world over. In Palomino, changes are already visible that are expected in beach communities worldwide.
As the sea rises, fewer mangroves are poised to preserve the beaches. Worldwide, 3769 square miles of mangroves have been removed, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and more than 500 square miles has been degraded.
That amounts to more than half of the world’s mangrove forests, which have also proven to be among the best plants at capturing and sequestering atmospheric carbon.
Many of the world’s denuded shorelines may face a fate like Palomino’s.
“They used to have volleyball tournaments on this beach,” one hotel worker told us. “Now it’s all gone. It’s sad.”
Compare this sad image:
Tourists lounge near where a bar once stood. 2018 images from Google show several structures that have since disappeared and a sea that is many meters further away. (Photo by Jeff McMahon)
To the same spot in a 2018 photo posted to Google Maps.
