Signs promoting a gargantuan resort community called “Mediterranea” are sprinkled all along the drive to Morocco’s postcard-perfect northeastern seaboard. The ads hint at palm trees and pristine beaches, an exotic getaway that will steer tourism dollars to this U.S.-allied Muslim kingdom.

The Spanish-led development scheduled to open this year is part of the Moroccan government’s efforts to revamp its tourism industry and create jobs for thousands of impoverished residents from this long-neglected patch of land that borders Algeria. According to Fadesa Group, the Spanish parent company, “the resort will include 3,000 homes and 16,000 hotel beds, a marina, three golf courses and a shopping and service area.”

The signs for Mediterranea continue all the way to Najib Bachiri’s sun-dappled office in the small town of Berkane, which is just a stone’s throw from the coast. An outspoken environmental activist, Bachiri doesn’t share the billboards’ vision of the positive changes Mediterranea and similar development projects will bring to Morocco.

The government always uses job creation to justify the destruction of what should be preserved,” Bachiri said with a deep sigh.

Bachiri leads an environmental advocacy group based in the rustic St. Agnes Catholic Church, which lost its congregation when the founder – an eccentric, pro-Nazi French priest – was forced out after World War II. Today, Bachiri and his staff look after the abandoned church in exchange for office space where they try to raise awareness of  Morocco’s stunning biodiversity.

One recent day at the church, Bachiri unrolled posters of native flora and fauna that he warns will disappear if the government’s development spree continues unchecked. He pointed to trees, turtles, ducks, lizards and other wildlife that he says are being wiped out by Mediterranea, which he says is built on some 1,000 hectares of wetlands that are close to an internationally recognized nature reserve.

            “Morocco is going through a development phase where there is no durable strategy for environmental preservation,” Bachiri said. “Now, there is a big fight against all this crazy development. Within three years, if Morocco doesn’t take strict measures, there will be negative impacts for the other parts of the reserve.”

Bachiri complains that Fadesa, the Spanish construction giant in charge of Mediterranea, hasn’t offered a real environmental impact assessment of the project. He claims that construction waste is being dumped straight into the Moulouya River.

(Fadesa Maroc's website doesn't include environmental information, but you can read the company's promotions for Mediterranea here. The U.N. says groups are working with Fadesa to create an environmental education center at the resort site. Summary here.)

“Morocco is the second country, after Turkey, with the most diversified flora in the Mediterranean. But with this crazy philosophy of development, I think we’ll lose that rank in the years to come,” Bachiri said.

Bachiri also doubts that Mediterranea can make good on its vows to inject tourism cash into the local economy. He said studies on earlier resort projects in Agadir showed that 75 percent of the returns were remitted to Europe or were accruing interest in Moroccan businessmen’s bank accounts.

The kind of tourism the Moroccan government is aiming for is not the kind that will help lift Moroccans out of poverty,” he said. “The money is not reinvested in the communities.”

By trade, Bachiri is a high-school English teacher and a former trainer of Peace Corps volunteers dispatched to Morocco. I met him in a roundabout way through reporting on sub-Saharan African refugees who pass through Berkane on perilous journeys to illegally enter Spain. His twin passions for human rights and environmental preservation intersect with the Africans, who camp in the region’s forests as they wait to be smuggled into Europe.

Bachiri has become a vocal crusader on both issues, which hasn’t won him any friends in the Moroccan government.

I’m on their blacklist,” he said with a wry laugh.

His environmental campaign includes writing letters to politicians, reaching out to the local media and forging relationships with international wildlife advocates. An American friend gave him a series of vintage Smokey the Bear posters, which are framed and hang throughout the church.

Bachiri’s latest worry is that the government isn’t taking climate change into consideration as it continues to approve development projects. In an ominous tone, he said he’d already begun to notice strange ecological occurrences along the Mediterranean coast. This year, a rare April rain continued for a week. Flowering trees blossomed before their time. Hedgehogs emerged earlier than usual.

Bachiri said global warming could sink developers’ plans even if his advocacy work fails. He quoted a study predicting that a large chunk of Saidia, the resort town where Mediterranea is under construction, could be submerged by 2040.