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Tourists arrive for an hour-long visit to Maya Bay beach through a new pier constructed over a reef in Loh Samah Bay beach at the Phi Phi Island National Park, on Phi Phi Leh Island, Krabi province, Thailand, February 23, 2023. On any given day in Maya Bay, up to 40 blacktip reef sharks cruise in the cyan shallows while about 4,000 tourists visit its white-sand beach flanked by towering cliffs. After a tourism ban and the COVID-19 pandemic between 2018 and 2022 halted all visitors to the bay, authorities allowed limited tourism to resume in 2022. Now conservationists say shark numbers are thinning out again, leaving Maya Bay struggling to strike a balance between preserving a pristine ecosystem and sustaining livelihoods dependent on tourism. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)
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