Chances are you’ve probably seen The Beach at sometime during your life and fantasised about how good it would be to pack your life in and go and leave on some hidden beach in the middle of the ocean and just have a completely sick time hanging out and doing drugs all the time.

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That might have been an option for you in the past but that’s literally no longer the case anymore as the beach where ‘The Beach’ was filmed is literally having to shut down because of overtourism. It’s estimated that over 5000 people a day visited Maya Bay and this has led to a decline in the island’s coral reef and landscape.

The President of Krabi Industry Council, Aekawit Pinyothammanotai is hoping that closing the beach from June-September and providing a new limited quota of tourists allowed to visit the bay each day will help to reverse the effects, but others are unsure it will have the desired outcome. Here’s what he had to say:

The number of tourists traveling to Krabi beaches keeps increasing while the resources remain the same; this results in a lot of trash, noise and overcrowded boats that makes accidents more likely and long-term environmental damage unavoidable.

The departments involved have to find a measure to control their number by asking the tour companies to report how many clients they have and when the number reaches the maximum, we have to tell the rest to wait until the following day.

I mean it certainly makes sense to implement these safeguards, although realistically they probably should have been put in place years ago. Can only hope that they succeed in preserving the natural beauty of the area, although like some of the doubters who think that the area needs to be closed permanently from tourists in order to save it, I’m not exactly confident. It’s doubtful that that will ever happen though due to the area’s reliance on tourism. Sad.

For more beaches, check out 9 beaches that you’ve never heard of but will be gagging to visit. Nice.