Desecration or Development?

Very surreal experience today - walked down to the jetty, and then around a headland to have a look at...

... Mourão's newly inaugurated beach! Complete with picnic tables, BBQs, bars, toilets, a wooden bridge, parasols, sand and turf, paddling pool for tinies, raft with water slide, a lifeguard... crowded with cars and people - all in an area which, a few months ago, was a dreamy paradise. To create this, they have razed the whole island to dust - some say it's a ploy by the incumbent mayor to get re-elected, all while there's no money to even pay the dustmen.

As I'm reading Wendell Berry at the moment (thanks, Hélène!), it's hard not to feel dismayed by it, and glad my battery ran out before I got a good photo. Hence,  you get this contrasting and nearby view of the smaller island we've swum to from the jetty, several times.