Coastal dunes: Redefining the vision of beaches in Mexico

I am Baruch Aguilar Mena (pronounced /Baruj/ but everyone calls me “Baru” or “Barush”). I was born in Mexico City on March 22, 1998, and in 2016, I migrated to Sisal, Yucatan, to study a degree in Sustainable Management of Coastal Zones in the Faculty of Sciences at UNAM. Since I was a student, I have been passionate about conserving coastal ecosystems. 

Starting my adult and professional life near the sea and seeing how these landscapes change naturally over time has awakened a deep love and interest in protecting coastal dunes. This has led me to work to help others  understand these ecosystems and their inhabitants. 

In 2019, during my final year of undergraduate school, three colleagues and I designed a coastal dune restoration project with the advice of female researchers from the university. At first, our project consisted of reforesting half a hectare of a fragmented coastal dune in Sisal, implementing training and awareness sessions with the community and employing PET recycling techniques in the different stages of the restoration. 

Six years after starting this great journey, we have learned many lessons and continue to implement community conservation and restoration projects in Sisal.

Coastal dunes: vital yet often overlooked biomes

Coastal dunes play a critical role in protecting coasts and those who depend on them. However, their importance remains under-recognized when it comes to coastal-marine conservation. 

Dunes not only protect the coast from erosion and storms but also support a complex network of specialized flora and fauna. Water filtration, provision of habitats for keystone species and microclimate regulation are just some of the ecosystem services that dunes provide. In addition, healthy dune ecosystems are essential to local communities, mostly young people, fishermen, housewives and nature tourism guides.

As important as they are to human and non-human communities, dunes are rarely talked about, making restoration efforts more isolated and challenging. Fortunately, through our restoration and socio-environmental education campaigns, I have had the opportunity to connect with people and groups who, like me, seek to conserve these spaces and highlight their importance to the quality of life of those who inhabit these shores.

Aerial view of the eastern part of Sisal. On the left is the coastal dune, and on the right is the community and the marsh. Photo: Recycling Dunes.

The coastal community where we work, Sisal, Yucatan, is surrounded by a dune system that protects the coast from erosion and storms. These dunes are home to unique biodiverse flora and fauna adapted to extreme conditions of wind, high salinity and lack of water. 

Some of the key species in dune stabilization include Ipomoea pes-caprae (locally known as Riñonina), Sesuvium portulacastrum (sea purslane) and Canavalia rosea (sea bean), all fundamental to sand fixation and the formation of resilient habitat. There are also shrub species such as Suriana maritima, Tournefortia gnaphalodes and Scaevola plumieri, which provide shelter and food for different species of fauna, including pollinating insects and coastal birds. In the latter group, there is a bird species endemic to Yucatan and whose distribution is limited to the Yucatan wren (Campylorhynchus yucatanicus) coastal dune ecosystem. 

Threats to Sisal’s dunes: Invasive species and rampant development

The beauty, rich biodiversity and fragile ecological balance of the Sisal dunes are threatened on several fronts, including urban growth, unregulated tourism and the presence of invasive species such as the Lechuguilla (Scaevola taccada) and the Casuarina (Casuarina equisetifolia). 

These exotic plants expand aggressively, forming dense canopies that displace native vegetation, reducing biodiversity. In addition, Casuarina equisetifolia produces dense, acidic leaf litter that prevents the germination of native species and creates compacted soils that are not conducive to natural dune regeneration.

To reverse these impacts, we implement active restoration strategies that include manual and mechanical removal of these invasive species and replacing them with nursery-grown native vegetation. In addition, we promote natural regeneration through creating exclusion fences – which are a type of corral that restricts the passage of people to prevent them from entering reforested areas and compromising the survival of the plants – and community awareness to prevent the reintroduction of invasive species in gardens and public spaces. In this way, we promote the care of local biodiversity as well as the coastal landscape.

Aerial image of the Port of Sisal. Photo: Recycling Dunes.

In the context of Mexico, the conservation of these ecosystems is a challenge since their ecological importance often goes unnoticed in the face of other development priorities. We must start visualizing nature not as a space to be exploited but as a system on which the quality of life of the communities depends. 

The country’s economic model continues to be strongly oriented towards extractivism, prioritizing sectors such as mass tourism, urban expansion, agroindustry and natural resource exploitation over ecosystem restoration and conservation. This approach results in the accelerated degradation of coastal environments, where real estate and tourism projects have destroyed large areas of dunes and mangroves without adequate environmental planning.

Although Mexico has signed international conservation agreements and has legal frameworks for ecosystem protection, effective implementation of restoration policies remains limited. The resources allocated to these efforts are often insufficient, and in many cases, the lack of political will and economic incentives means that conservation is relegated to the background. 

This scenario makes it urgent to strengthen restoration strategies from a socio-ecosystemic approach, in which conservation not only seeks to recover the ecological functionality of ecosystems but also to guarantee sustainable livelihoods for communities. A change of perspective is needed in which restoration is not perceived as an obstacle to development but as an investment in resilience, wellbeing and environmental security for future generations.

Under this perspective, a key axis of our project is the active participation of young people, women and tourism service providers, who have shown interest in learning about the importance of the dunes and contributing to their conservation. 

However, this process has been gradual and has required constant effort since, as outsiders, we have faced challenges in building trust and credibility. The communities often have an ambivalent relationship with academia, a mixture of appreciation and distrust, due to previous experiences where university projects arrived, did research and left without generating tangible benefits for the community.

Our team: Reciclando Dunas

Although our team emerged from the university, thanks to our continuous efforts to always integrate the local community in our work, we are not perceived as part of traditional academia. This has allowed us to build a closer relationship with the community. 

We have had to demonstrate with concrete actions that our interest goes beyond research and that we seek to generate participatory processes where local and academic knowledge complement each other. The keys have been perseverance, open dialogue and recognition of the needs and concerns of those who inhabit and depend on these ecosystems.

The work team is made up of community members passionate about environmental education and coastal care, such as Victoria, Fatima and Erika, as well as academics and professionals in coastal management, including Patricia, Laura, Raul, Vanessa and Diana. Over the course of six years, we have promoted restoration, conservation and environmental education initiatives in Sisal. Depending on the activity, other people from different local groups and organizations join the team, strengthening the scope and impact of each action.

In recent years, we have incorporated capacity building for vulnerable groups in the community, including training in personal finance and self-care for high school students and women.

Part of the working group implementing the environmental education program. Seated from left to right: Tona, Baruch, Patricia, Karina, Fatima, Raul, Erika and Victoria. Standing: Grecia, Samantha, Denise and Mariana. Photos: Recycling Dunes. 

In 2025, our goal is to consolidate and expand our actions. We seek to transplant 4,000 native plants on the coastal dune and to welcome the second generation of students from  Guardians of the Coast, an environmental education program in the community’s elementary school. The first generation of students who worked with us taught us many lessons about what environmental education applied to children means. Our experience with the program led us to train in community pedagogy, session facilitation and pedagogical mediation to achieve more meaningful learning. 

We also want to eradicate invasive species and strengthen the capacities of youth, women and other sectors of the community, ensuring that the conservation of the dunes is a collective and sustainable effort over time.

The Restoration Stewards program will be key to achieving these goals. Through this large learning community, we will be able to access resources, training and a network of people with experience in ecological restoration. This will allow us to improve our strategies, strengthen community participation and, of course, give greater visibility to the project. It will also provide us with tools to adapt to the challenges of working to conserve such a fragile ecosystem, which is undervalued in the country’s environmental policies.

For me, the restoration of coastal dunes is more than an ecological action: it is an opportunity to strengthen the link between people and their environment, promoting a change of perspective on how we inhabit and use natural resources. Through this project, we seek to transform the way beaches and coastal dunes are perceived in Mexico, highlighting the importance of these socio-ecosystems. 

It has not been an easy task, but we are moving forward step by step, pushing and spreading our message. However, restoration is not an individual effort: it requires the commitment and participation of those who inhabit, visit and enjoy these landscapes. 

If we want our coasts to be resilient and sustainable, we need more voices, more hands and more hearts joining this cause. Will you join us in the defense of our dunes?