Where 's The Beach

It’s not just your imagination—beaches are vanishing around the world.

From San Clemente to the Gold Coast of Australia, coastlines are shrinking, surf breaks are changing, and entire stretches of sand are disappearing. But the cause isn’t always the same.

In California, rivers and creeks that once fed beaches with sand are now dammed, diverted, or armored—cutting off the sediment supply before it ever reaches the shore. In places like Bali, Hawaii, and Portugal, the problem often lies right on the coast itself: seawalls, groins, and breakwaters interrupt natural longshore drift, starving some areas of sand while piling it up in others.

This is a global problem with local causes—and each coastline tells a different version of the same story. At Hossegor, famed sandbars have been reshaped by artificial structures and shifting currents. On Oahu’s North Shore, erosion is eating away the land beneath beachfront homes. And at some San Clemente breaks, high tide now swallows what used to be a wide beach.

What’s at stake isn’t just sand or surf. Beaches are essential coastal infrastructure. They absorb wave energy, reduce flooding, support biodiversity, and fuel tourism economies. When they’re gone, communities and ecosystems lose a critical line of defense.

Yet time and time again, beaches are treated like an afterthought—managed in isolation, or not at all.

We’re here to change that.

Bring Back Our Beaches is a global effort to elevate coastal erosion as the urgent issue it is, spotlight region-specific causes and solutions, and push for policies and investments that protect the shorelines we all rely on—whether they are your home break or a bucket-list surf trip away.