Taghazout Bay, Before Paradise Was Built

During my youth, I lived along Taghazout Bay’s coast just outside of Agadir; prior to becoming a resort area, this was primarily an expanse of sand and mountains —wide open and quiet, with hardly any hotels or other large built environments— a landscape transformed by wind, waves and time instead of design. The sea was calm and bountiful; from shore, one could often see dolphins, orcas and occasionally beluga whales swimming very close to the shore…and they were integral parts of this environment, not simply tourist attractions. During the ensuing years, much of the landscape has changed; hotels and residential developments have spread along the coastline, effectively reconfiguring the area for tourism; with the arrival of quad bikes, personal watercraft, and commercial fishing vessels, Taghazout Bay is now filled with noise and motion 24 hours a day; as such, there appear to be noticeably fewer living things in the water than there were generations ago; there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of marine mammals using this area. In attempting to turn the Taghazout Bay Coastal Area into a paradise, there has been an essential deterioration in the relationship among land, sea and living things which existed within this coastal area and contributed to the experience of a whole.