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The Dark Side of Tulum
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The Dark Side of Tulum

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Tulum's postcard image, white beaches, cenotes, and boutique jungle hotels, sits on top of a coastal ecosystem that locals and scientists say is close to collapse. The film looks at what unregulated tourism development has done to the region: mangroves cleared for construction, sewage and runoff seeping into the underground rivers that feed the cenotes, and coral reefs offshore showing the damage. Interviews with residents, environmental researchers, and business owners lay out the tension between the money tourism brings and the ecological cost of building resorts, roads, and beach clubs faster than the area's infrastructure can handle. The documentary traces how a once-quiet fishing town became an international destination in a couple of decades, and what that speed did to water quality, wildlife, and the Maya communities who lived there first. It is less an attack on tourists than an account of what happens when a fragile limestone coastline is treated as an unlimited resource, with the cenotes themselves as the clearest evidence of the strain.