Tunisia's Sandy Beaches Eaten away by Coastal Erosion

In Tunisia's seaside town of Hammamet, bulldozers diligently shovel sand from a nearby desert onto a popular beach in an attempt to stop it from disappearing due to erosion.
"This beach is the postcard image of Hammamet," said environmentalist Chiheb Ben Fredj peering nostalgically at the town's iconic Yasmine beach.
"It has been seared in our minds since our childhood," he added, as laborers worked to restore the central Tunisian waterfront to its former sandy glory, reported Agence France Presse.
Like many other coastal areas in North Africa, severe erosion has led to many of Hammamet's sandy beaches vanishing in recent years, taking a toll on the holiday hotspot about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of the capital Tunis.
Coastlines across the world are in a constant natural flux, with the seas claiming and depositing sediment.
But human activity, including coastal property development and offshore sand mining, significantly accelerates beach erosion.
Among other impacts, construction and coastal defenses in one area can stop sediment from traveling along a coastline, leaving existing beaches deprived of new material.
Studies have also shown the impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures and sea levels, exacerbate the phenomenon.
Tourism draw
In the Mediterranean, where the British National Oceanography Centre says sea levels have risen at a higher rate over the past 20 years than the entirety of the 20th century, shorelines are changing rapidly.
The sea is also warming 20 percent faster than the rest of the world, according to the United Nations.
Tunisia's coastline has been a major asset for the Mediterranean country with a struggling economy, as it aims to host some 10 million tourists this year.
Tourism accounts for up to 14 percent of the country's GDP, providing tens of thousands of jobs in a country where unemployment tops 16 percent and 40 percent among young people.
Tunisia has already lost more than 90 kilometers of beaches to erosion, according to official figures from last year.
Of the country's 570 kilometers of sandy beaches suitable for swimming, 190 kilometers are at imminent risk of disappearing, according to Tunisian reports.
A majority of the beaches most affected by erosion are located near cities.
Tunisia's environmental groups, as well as the government's Coastal Protection and Development Agency (APAL), blame the rapid erosion mostly on human activity and construction on the coast, which they say is further aggravated by climate change.
"Construction projects have not been designed to respect coastal dynamics," an APAL official told AFP.
'Not sustainable'
To save the Hammamet beach, one of Tunisia's worst-affected according to the World Bank, authorities last month began trucking in around 750 lorry loads filled with sand from the inland desert province of Kairouan, about 110 kilometers away.
APAL, which operates under the environment ministry, was in a race against time to refill the beach before the peak of tourist season.
But while the rebuilding of beaches, known as beach nourishment, may be a quick fix, "it's not a sustainable solution", said Ben Fredj.
"This sand may not last long," added the secretary general of the Environmental Education Association.
"It can be swallowed in a few days in the event of a storm", he said, as was the case in the summer of 2023.
The process can also prove expensive.
Coastal authorities estimated the cost of restoring sand to three beaches in Hammamet, Monastir and Sfax at 3.9 million Tunisian dinars ($1.25 million).
But for locals, restoring their priceless seafront is worth the money.
The Yasmine beach "is a showcase for Hammamet," said Narjess Bouasker, who runs the town's Menara hotel and leads the regional hotel federation.
"We must take back our beach that the sea has swallowed," she said, calling for a balance between safeguarding the landscape, cherished by locals and foreign visitors alike, and fighting coastal erosion.
"For us, the priority is not to touch the beauty of the city," she said.
Bouasker said she has seen increasing awareness among authorities, but refilling beaches with sand is still a gamble.
"We don't know how the sea will react", she added.

The second baby of a tree-dwelling kangaroo made its public debut this week in New York, poking its pink head out of its mom's furry white pouch.

The tiny Matschie’s tree kangaroo, or Dendrolagus matschiei, was born in December and is the second born to the same mother since 2022. It also was the third of its kind born at the Bronx Zoo since 2008, The Associated Press reported.

The tree kangaroo species only gestate for about six weeks before they are born and immediately crawl into their marsupial moms' pouches, the zoo said in a statement. It takes around seven months for the young to start peeking out of the pouch.

There are only around 2,500 tree kangaroos in the wild and 42 in captivity, the zoo said. In a statement Friday, a Bronx Zoo spokesperson said that the kangaroo's birth was significant for the network of zoos that aims to preserve genetic diversity among endangered animals.

"It's a small population and because of that births are not very common," said Jessica Moody, curator of primates and small mammals at the Bronx Zoo. “So it's a rare and exciting event,” adding that baby tree kangaroos are “possibly one of the cutest animals to have ever lived. They look like stuffed animals, it's amazing.”

The tree kangaroos are native to the Huon Peninsula in Papua New Guinea, where they are threatened by human activities such as habitat destruction and hunting, the statement said. They live primarily in trees and are smaller than Australia’s better-known red kangaroo. An adult tree kangaroo weighs between 20 and 25 pounds (9–11 kilograms). The joeys are about the size of a human thumb when they are born, but grow to as long as 30 inches (76 centimeters).

Tunisia's Sandy Beaches Eaten away by Coastal Erosion