Aidan Hartley Aidan Hartley

Blot on the landscape

issue 06 October 2007

Malindi

I watched a nest of baby turtles hatch on the beach in front of my mother’s house recently. What a hellish start to a life, I thought. You burrow up through sand and plastic rubbish discarded by tourists. On the race towards the sea everybody wants to eat you: ghost crabs, herons, crows and monitor lizards. If you make it to the waves, the predatory fish are waiting to gulp you down, nets to snare you, pollution to poison you. With enemies like these, who needs Naomi Campbell?

The supermodel says that she and her ex-boyfriend Flavio Briatore, boss of a Formula One team, are going to build a casino and 40 luxury flats on the beach, two plots away from our house. I hear it’s going to be called the Billionaires’ Resort.

The beach is among the most important turtle hatcheries for several rare species on Africa’s eastern coast.

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