The Black Sea coast

so, im writing this update from the town of tsarevo, on the southern black sea coast where I have been working this last week. I arrived monday morning and have spent the last couple of days seeing the towns in the region and the two park protected areas along the coast. Most of the shoreline is small rocky cliffs punctuated by occasional sand beaches, and the water is a clear dark blue. the weather has been a bit cold, but today is nice and sunny. this place is beautiful, where forest and mountains meet the sea, but recently foreign real estate investment has turned a lot of these small towns into cities of huge hotels, scarring the landscape. none of these hotels will be filled, and they are putting them up as fast as possible. A lot of these investments are an easy way to launder money, so they dont care about the environmental impacts or whether they are financially viable in the long run. But now because there is so much money flowing in to the area the local municipality is squared off against the nature park and is trying to develop as much land as possible. Now there is a case in court that would seek to remove all the land on the coast from under strandja nature park control south of tsarevo so it can be developed into even more hotels.
it seems sometimes that the majority of people here are either uninformed about the importance of the environment, or want the money more. i know thats not always true, but its frustrating none the less. another thing that is kind of disturbing is the sewage system. along the coast there are random tubes that dump untreated waste from the hotels and buildings into the water. these spots are, more often than not, located nearby tsarevos famous beaches, and they are disaster for the marine species here. the waste kills off all the shell fish and there are literal dunes of fine shell bits that have washed up on shore from the dead animals.
i mean not to paint the picture too bad, but it is depressing sometimes. however, there are a lot of environmental NGO's that are working hard to convince the government to increase protection and do something about it. and the two protected areas along the Black Sea do cover a good amount of coastline, so thats good news. anyway, today is my last day here and tomorrow I head out for more adventures, so i will keep you all posted.