Despite the huge number of people around the world who head to the beach each summer to escape the cities in which they live, not every sandy landscape they visit is beautiful and pristine. In fact, irrespective of the number of beachgoers, many shorelines on the planet are littered with garbage and suffer from polluted waters. Sad but true.
However, there are some beaches that are so magnificent, they not only offer true refuge for travelers, but provide a sanctuary for wildlife as well. Recently CNN Travel and the Mother Nature Network identified the most spectacular, eco-friendly shorelines after searching the planet and, to no surprise, most of their top choices were on protected land or nearly impossible to reach.
One of those beaches, Playa Matapalo, Costa Rica, happens to be the location of where Hacienda Matapalo’s beach club will be located.
“I fell in love with Playa Matapalo the minute I saw it,” said Hacienda Matapalo’s Executive Vice President Brian Albury. “When we chose our location, we knew how special it was. Now the rest of the world knows too.”
Playa Matapalo was named as the number two eco-friendly beach in the world, behind only Whitehaven Beach in Whitsunday Islands, Australia. Some of the beaches it ranked in front of include: Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, Oahu, Hawaii; Koh Libong, Trang Province, Thailand; Las Islas Cies, Galicia, Spain; and Sancho Bay, Fernando de Noronha, Brazil.
Although their cartography was a little off, as the article referenced the Osa Peninsula which is actually about an hour and a half south of Playa Matapalo Beach by car, it did collectively describe the two areas beautifully.
“Known as the lungs of the Earth,” the article stated, “the Osa Peninsula is blessed with a dense forest and a conservation-minded government. Half of the 500,000 species of flora and fauna located in Costa Rica can be found here. The area is also home to beautiful Playa Matapalo, a gray-sand beach popular with surfers that leads into the Portalon National Wildlife Refuge complete with a marine turtle protection project.”
“We knew that Playa Matapalo was one of the best beaches on the planet,” Albury said. “It has been a recipient of the prestigious Blue Flag more than once.”
Modeled after the Blue Flag program developed in Europe to identify the world's best beaches based upon ecological quality and visitor conveniences, Costa Rica has created its own Blue Flag program with strict objective rating standards involving water and beach qualities of cleanliness. Only those beaches obtaining a water and beach quality score of 90 or more (out of 100) are certified as Blue Flag.
The Blue Flag designation is a badge of honor and distinction.
The program's overall goal is environmental excellence, not just getting by. The environmental excellence bar is intentionally set high through the establishment of objective criteria. It involves the communities, from businesses to schools to local governments. There is an economic incentive to attain Blue Flag status, community pride at stake and an increasing awareness of how sensitive the oceans are.
“That was one of the reasons we specifically chose Playa Matapalo as the location for Hacienda Matapalo’s beach club,” Albury beamed. “It really doesn’t get any better than this.”
To learn more about Playa Matapalo and the Hacienda Matapalo Beach Club, visit HaciendaMatapalo.com.
