While farmers in southern Portugal face 25% water cuts and households are told to ration, a single golf course near Melides is estimated to use up to 800,000 liters of water a day—enough to supply a town of roughly 5,300 people—to keep its fairways irrigated in the middle of a protected dune system that took millennia to form.

Welcome to CostaTerra Golf & Ocean Club, where "simple luxury" means nearly 300 hectares of legally protected coastal habitat have been consumed or repurposed so American tourists can play golf in paradise.

And it's completely legal. Sort of.

The Loophole Swallowing Europe's Coasts

Satellite analysis from a pan-European investigation by The Guardian found that almost 300 hectares of protected dunes tied to the CostaTerra site have been consumed or repurposed for the project. The golf course alone covers 75 hectares of what was supposed to be untouchable wilderness on Portugal's Alentejo coast—the stretch that brochures still call "Europe's last wild Atlantic shore."

Portuguese authorities greenlit the project under an EU rule called "overriding public interest"—a clause written for highways, hospitals, and power grids that's now being stretched to cover private beach clubs. The logic goes like this: luxury real estate creates jobs and tax revenue, therefore it's in the public interest, therefore we can pave protected nature reserves.

"When governments treat high-yield real estate as 'public interest,' they don't just bend a rule—they set a precedent that opens every protected coastline to serial development," warns ClientEarth, the environmental law nonprofit challenging these approvals across Europe. The legal standard requires proof that no alternative sites exist and that environmental damage is proportionate to genuine public benefit.

The developer, US-based Discovery Land Company—which operates similar private clubs across North America and the Caribbean—markets CostaTerra as featuring habitat corridors, native plants, and "respect for nature."

What the marketing materials don't mention: you can't restore a dune system once you've punched irrigation pipes and asphalt through it. You just manage its slow collapse.

Europe's Vanishing Wilds, Six Hundred Football Fields at a Time

Between 2018 and 2023, Europe lost 9,000 square kilometers of nature and farmland—roughly 600 football pitches per day—with much of it going to upscale coastal developments. The Guardian's investigation flagged Portugal as featuring prominently in that dataset, with CostaTerra marked as a "textbook case" of protected land turning privatized.

Portugal now hosts around 100 golf courses nationwide, with approximately 38 crammed into the Algarve region alone—heavily concentrated in the country's most water-stressed districts. As reservoir levels in the Algarve sank to between 22% and 43% capacity in early 2024 (while most of Portugal sat above 80%), Reuters described the drought as "permanent, systemic."

In January 2024, the Portuguese government ordered 15% water cuts for urban users—including hotels and golf courses—and 25% cuts for agriculture in the hardest-hit southern regions. Officials warned they might suspend public water supplies for irrigating golf courses and fast-tracked a desalination plant for Albufeira to secure supply.

Translation: farmers and families tighten their belts while premium tee times multiply.

The Gold Rush Nobody Voted For

CostaTerra isn't an outlier. It's a blueprint.

Lagoa dos Salgados (Algarve): For years, conservationists have fought a mega-resort proposal—three hotels, villas, and an 18-hole course—encroaching on one of Portugal's most important birding wetlands. Authorities have ping-ponged between permissions and protections; the site was later slated for national reserve status, but pressure from hospitality and property interests persists.

Comporta-Troia-Melides corridor: A luxury land grab along 45 kilometers of coast—rice-field estates, gated beach compounds, members-only clubs—has triggered investigations into restricted public beach access. Euronews reported on what locals describe as a "creeping privatization" of the shoreline, with municipal enforcement promises following complaints about barriers and security patrols blocking traditional public paths.

The Greenwash Industrial Complex

Every developer now speaks fluent sustainability. CostaTerra's materials tout habitat corridors, native planting, and environmental stewardship. Some newer Portuguese courses carry sustainability certifications from organizations like GEO Foundation for practices including reclaimed water use, drought-tolerant turf, and weather-based irrigation controls.

Here's the problem: even the most sustainably managed golf course is still an irrigated monoculture expanding in a country running out of water. Industry roadmaps acknowledge rising conflict with local water users and warn of regulatory caps as droughts intensify. Environmental upgrades are real but limited by fundamental scale: you're still growing thirsty grass in a Mediterranean drought zone.

Who Pays, Who Drinks, Who Gets In?

Here's the accounting nobody wants to publish:

Water: Farmers and households absorb cuts and price hikes while resorts bank on desalination plants, pipe upgrades, and wastewater recycling projects funded largely by public money. The infrastructure keeping luxury greens alive runs on taxpayer euros.

Access: Towns promise to police illegal beach barriers, but Euronews documented de facto exclusion—valet gates, private security, restricted access—spreading faster than enforcement. Annual public audits of beach access don't exist. Nobody's systematically counting violations.

Biodiversity: Dune ecosystems that took millennia to form get fragmented in a construction season. The Guardian notes that once you pierce dune systems with roads and irrigation infrastructure, you don't restore them—you manage decline.

What Accountability Could Look Like

The fixes aren't complicated:

Narrow the gate: Require independent, court-reviewable proof that no brownfield or inland alternatives exist before approving coastal projects. ClientEarth argues that "public interest" must mean genuine public benefit—essential infrastructure, not private amenities.

Water budgets with teeth: Mandate drought-indexed caps for ornamental irrigation with public enforcement disclosures by municipality. Publish who used what water, when, and whether they exceeded limits during rationing periods.

No-net-loss for protected systems: If a project fragments dunes or wetlands, developers must fund like-for-like restoration in the same ecological zone—not distant offsets. Europe's own data shows losses accumulate through repeated "small" projects.

Access audits: Annual public reports on beach and coastal path access in luxury development corridors, with fines and permit suspensions for violations.

The Punchline

Portugal's tourism board sells the dream of wild Atlantic winds, empty beaches, and ancient dunes. Then it hands the keys to private developers.

If "overriding public interest" can stretch to mean fairways that drink like towns, then protected nature isn't protected—it's just real estate waiting for the right bid. Europe's satellite maps show it happening in real time: green turning gray, commons becoming compounds, one golf course at a time.

ClientEarth warns that unless legal standards and enforcement catch up, CostaTerra won't be an outlier. It'll be the template every developer copies.

The Atlantic will still be there. You just might not be allowed on the beach.