Mauritius Losing Public Beach Access as Private Claims Swallow Coastline

The Beach Access Crisis Masks a Deeper Threat to Mauritius’s Coastline

Of the 322 kilometers of beaches ringing Mauritius, just 48 kilometers are officially accessible to the public. That is barely 15 percent of the total shoreline, and the share is shrinking. For ordinary Mauritians, the consequences are immediate and personal: being turned away by signs, barriers, intimidating behavior, or aggressive dogs deployed by camp and hotel operators. Nearly every citizen has a story.

Housing and Land Minister Shakeel Mohamed reignited the access debate at a press conference on Thursday, June 25, 2026, reaffirming that all beaches in Mauritius are public property and must remain freely accessible regardless of hotels, camps, or state-leased land along the coast. Citizens and visitors, he insisted, have the right to enjoy the shoreline at no cost, whether walking, sitting, picnicking, swimming, or simply relaxing. The minister emphasized that both the wet sand zone between low and high water marks and the dry sand zone extending from the high water mark to the authorized building limit are part of the public domain.

Mohamed himself was not spared. He recounted being confronted by a woman at a camp who demanded to know what he was doing on her property. The incident captures how thoroughly the public’s claim to its own coastline has been eroded in practice.

His intervention follows a June 2024 report from the Law Reform Commission titled “Criminalisation of denial of access to public beaches in Mauritius,” which affirmed that all beaches are open to the public and proposed amending the Beach Authority Act to criminalize denial of access, with penalties up to 100,000 rupees and imprisonment of up to two years. The proposal went nowhere.

The legal reality remains muddled. The Pas Géométriques, an 81.21-meter-wide band of state-owned coastal land measured from the high water mark, cannot be sold but can be leased. The public may walk, sunbathe, play, and picnic in the zone between the extreme low and high water marks. Yet determining these boundaries is extremely difficult, and the wet sand zone has shrunk considerably due to climate change, erosion, and rising seas.

Mohamed announced several steps: requesting the police commissioner to prosecute those illegally restricting beach access, instructing competent authorities to identify and halt illegal encroachments, warning that structures illegally blocking public access will be dismantled, and launching a national audit of beach access points to assess their condition, legality, and accessibility. A mapping initiative will identify all official beach accesses, including those obstructed or privatized over time.

These measures would be welcome. Past experience, though, suggests they risk becoming temporary gestures without lasting follow-through.

Meanwhile, a far graver threat is building offshore. An operational study on coastal risks, financed by the AFD and released publicly in November 2025 on the Environment Ministry website, presents scientific projections of coastal erosion and flooding across three timelines: present day, 2050, and 2100. The findings are alarming. By 2050, Mauritius could experience coastal retreat of between 30 and 60 meters. In some regions, that figure could reach 100 to 200 meters by 2100.

This is not distant speculation. These are precise scientific data. Within just 24 years, large portions of the nation’s coastline could be submerged. The question will no longer be how to equitably share beach access. There may be no beaches left to share.

Of the 322 kilometers of coastline, 90 kilometers are occupied by hotels and 60 kilometers by private residences. New hotel and residential projects continue to proliferate, compressing the public’s already narrow share further. Walls and embankments built close to the water accelerate erosion and destabilize the entire coast, leaving communities more exposed with each passing season.

Advocacy groups like Aret Kokin nou Laplaz have long argued for halting leases at the high water mark and preserving a clear coastal buffer zone. Such a band, left undeveloped and vegetated, acts as a shock absorber against sea assault and allows the shoreline room to shift naturally. It is a measure that would serve public safety as much as public access.

The stakes transcend political posturing and turf protection. Whether Mauritius acts on the science in time, or waits until the shoreline itself settles the argument, is the question that will define the coast its citizens inherit.