At a far-flung retreat amid the islands of French Polynesia, ultra-high-end hospitality goes hand in hand with a commitment to sustainability and the environment.

Photographs by Chris Schalkx

A turtle hatchling at the InterContinental Tahiti; One of Tetiaroa Atoll’s palm-fringed motu, or islets. — *Left to right*: A turtle hatchling at the InterContinental Tahiti; One of Tetiaroa Atoll’s palm-fringed *motu*, or islets.

The morning sun had yet to tip over the horizon when the phone rang. “They’re ready,” a voice on the other end of the line said. A buggy soon picked me up. With a cooling breeze rustling the palm leaves overhead, we drove to the beach, where marine biologist Théo Guillaume was already waiting. He led me through the beach cabbage shrubs to a patch of sand encircled by chicken wire. There I saw them, wriggling and writhing: dozens of green sea turtle hatchlings, freshly emerged from their ping-pong ball–size eggs. One by one, Guillaume transferred the younglings to a wooden box and placed it near the shore. We watched them flip through the sand like wind-up bath toys until the waves carried them toward an uncertain future.

In the world of sea turtles, though, these little swimmers were born into privileged households. As a protected sanctuary, the Tahitian atoll of Tetiaroa, a ring of 12 motu (islets) and sandy cays encircled by a barrier reef some 50 kilometers north of Tahiti, is one of the species’ most important nesting sites in French Polynesia. Unlike many beaches elsewhere in these South Pacific islands, Tetiaroa’s turtles have largely been spared from the pollution, coastal developments, and locals’ appetite for turtle meat that have drastically shrunk their population and habitats over the past few decades. The Brando, the plush resort I was staying at, is Tetiaroa’s sole occupant, and guests have the privilege of watching turtles hatch on its doorstep.

Guillaume and his colleagues at Tahiti-based NGO Te Mana O Te Moana (“Spirit of the Ocean”) patrol Tetiaroa’s motus around the clock to keep the turtles thriving. Since 2007, the foundation has indexed more than 300,000 hatchlings across the atoll and studied everything from their land predators (crabs and rats) to the migration patterns of nesting females, which can range as far as Fiji. Struggling hatchlings are airlifted to Tahiti, where they’re nursed back to health by vets and volunteers at the Te Mana O Te Moana rehabilitation center on the sprawling grounds of the InterContinental Tahiti.

A 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty movie poster at Les Mutinés, The Brando’s fine-dining restaurant; The Brando’s Beachcomber Café. — *Left to right*: A 1962 *Mutiny on the Bounty* movie poster at Les Mutinés, The Brando’s fine-dining restaurant; The Brando’s Beachcomber Café.

Their efforts are paying off. On his iPad, Guillaume showed me this year’s statistics, which, with 365 confirmed nests and 27,307 counted hatchlings, he described as the biggest nesting season they’ve ever seen. “Green sea turtles are still endangered,” he said, as the silver turtle pendant on his necklace caught the first glow of sunrise. “But over the past few years, we’ve seen more and more. The lines on our graphs are finally rising.”

The Tetiaroa atoll has long been — and still is — a haven for privileged humans too. For centuries, Tahitian royals used these palm-frilled islets as their summertime hideaway. Polynesian princesses would retreat here to prepare for weddings with scrubs from beach sand and turmeric, and bathe in the cool lagoon at dusk. Young nobles were sent here for ha’apori (ritual fattening) in sunless longhouses, living on a diet of high-calorie breadfruit and coconut water to grow plump and pale — the pinnacle of beauty in the Polynesia of yore.

In 1960, Hollywood heartthrob Marlon Brando chanced upon Tetiaroa while scouting film locations for Mutiny on the Bounty. He was immediately smitten. At the time, Tetiaroa’s only inhabitant was a gun-toting blind woman (and two dozen cats and dogs) whose father, a Canadian dentist named Johnston Walter Williams, was bequeathed most of the atoll by the Tahitian king during his tenure as consul for Britain in the early 1900s. It was exactly the kind of away-from-it-all idyll Brando craved, and after years of negotiations, he finally persuaded the woman to sell the atoll for the grand sum of US$270,000 and an apple pie.

*Left to right*: A tomato tartlet at Bob’s Bar; One of The Brando’s oceanfront villas.

*Left to right*: The Brando’s boathouse; vintage photos of the resort’s namesake adorn the menu at Bob’s Bar.

In the decades that followed, Brando retreated to his very own kingdom for weeks at a time, often wearing nothing more than a sarong and a wind-frizzled straw hat. He would spend hours in the warm sand, worlds away from the cameras and paparazzi, listening to the lapping waves and whispers of the wind. He’d fantasize about building a small eco-resort from bamboo and coconut wood, with a kitchen drawing on organic gardens and appliances running on wind or solar power. There’d be a research station, a “university of the sea” to teach future generations about the importance of preserving this fragile ecosystem, and every structure would be designed to minimize its impact on the environment. All, Brando stressed, to honor and respect the land and the Tahitians who dwelled these motus long before — and for long after — his arrival. The actor passed away in 2004, but his ideas had spun a business plan into motion. A decade later, a resort bearing his name welcomed its first guests.

Last March, when The Brando’s private airstrip appeared through the window of the puddle jumper I’d boarded in Tahiti 20 minutes earlier, I felt the same sense of awe its namesake must’ve felt when he first laid eyes on Tetiaroa. A dozen jungle-cloaked motus floated below me like an emerald necklace, the lagoon in between edged by bone-white sand and mottled with patches of aquamarine, cerulean, cobalt, and azure. As the plane descended, I could make out the skinny palm trees and thatch-covered roofs of the resort’s 36 villas hiding in the jungle fringe.

After an exuberant Polynesian welcome ceremony, a buggy whisked me to my villa. Set away from the beach in order to give the resident turtles space to dig out their nests, my island home was a South Seas fantasy of woven palm fronds and sun-bleached wood, smartened up with creamy terrazzo and lots of glass. A pebble-floored bathroom opened to an outdoor tub, and as if the turquoise lagoon visible from the foot of my bed wasn’t enough to remind me of my whereabouts, a smattering of Polynesian art and carvings from coconut wood hammered it home. So did my private backyard, with its carpet of sugar-white sand, thatched dining pavilion, plunge pool, and inviting hammock.

*Left to right*: The resort’s sports coach, Tupua Vaoenuiotuoho; a mango shake at the Beachcomber Café.

The bars and restaurants, clustered around the lounger-dotted beach and main pool at the heart of the resort, had an equally haute-Polynesian feel. All-day diner The Beachcomber hit the spot with the type of food you’d want to find at a toes-in-the-sand place like this: coconut-crusted lagoon fish, local veggie casserole, and zingy roasted chicken with chilies and lime. The adjoining teppanyaki joint would have been a date-night delight (if only I had brought my wife along) while nearby Bob’s Bar is the tiki cocktail–slinging, lobster roll–serving beach bar where you’re most likely to bump into The Brando’s A-list clientele (it’s a beloved getaway for the likes of Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Barack Obama). An upturned wooden ship’s hull adorned with a sailboat-shaped chandelier and old Mutiny on the Bounty movie posters houses the resort’s most recent culinary arrival, Les Mutinés. At this fine-dining restau – rant spearheaded by acclaimed French chef Jean Imbert, guests embark on a culinary voyage along the Bounty’s historic route from England (an elevated take on fish and chips) to Tahiti (soufflé with home-grown vanilla) by way of Chile (ceviche) and South Africa (chargrilled crustacean).

Given the resort’s price tag of at least US$3,200 per night, these chichi restaurants, private pools, and other luxury trappings made sense. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder, is this what Marlon Brando had had in mind? The next morning, Tihoni Maire helped me answer that question during a behind-the-scenes tour of the island. As a head guide of the Tetiaroa Society, his team’s mission is to ensure that the atoll and its residents have a future as rich as their past. With funding from The Brando and The Brando Family Trust, the nonprofit organization builds upon Marlon’s vision of preserving the atoll as a wildlife sanctuary and research center. It operates a research station and laboratory near the resort’s staff village, where it opens its facilities to visiting scientists in fields that range from marine biology to archaeology.

The Tetiaroa Society also assists The Brando in its mission to bring carbon emissions close to zero. Near the airstrip, Tihoni and I cycled past row after row of solar panels gleaming in the sun; they supply almost 75 percent of the resort’s energy demands. There were towering tanks where water was collected before being filtered, desalinated, or purified via reverse osmosis for use in pools, gardens, and guest villas. In a warehouse scented with the sweet stink of fermenting fruit, Tihoni showed me the resort’s waste management systems: waste is sorted and recycled across 30 different bins; discarded glass is crushed into fine sand to pave the island’s swirling roads; and an eco-digester turns leftover food into hyper-potent compost. Said compost makes its way to the organic gardens in a jungle clearing at the heart of the island, where I found gardeners tending to everything from moringa and cabbages to bananas and papaya trees. Out back, wooden beehives buzzed with stingless bees, hard at work to turn coconut and pandanus nectar into deliciously floral honey. “All without pesticides and predators,” Tihoni said. “They might just be the happiest bees in the world.”

*Left to right*: A sunset view from The Brando’s Te Manu Bar; inside a villa.

The resort’s sustainability showpiece, though, was hidden underground. Following Tihoni down a stairwell in an unassuming concrete building, I arrived in a machine room abuzz with noise and covered floor-to-ceiling in a tangle of pipes. Tihoni instructed me to place my hands on a particularly large one, which felt cool to the touch and wet from condensation. It was filled with seawater, he explained, piped in from the cold depths of the ocean then pushed through a loop around the resort’s air-conditioning systems to keep the villas cool, saving tons of electricity along the way. These eco- efforts have paid off: The Brando was the first resort in the world to achieve a platinum-level LEED certification. Still, it’ll keep pushing to diminish its carbon output altogether. “What we’re doing now is ground zero, a baseline,” Tihoni said. “It can only get better from here. We want Tetiaroa and The Brando to be a blueprint, to show the hotel industry what’s possible.”

Later, I joined another Tetiaroa Society guide, Tehiana O’Connor, on a motu-hopping tour around the atoll. As our boat skimmed over the lagoon, she explained how Tetiaroa’s base, a millennia-old volcano, created a natural barrier between the lagoon and the open sea. This unique marine ecosystem is a safe haven for juvenile blacktip sharks and baby rays, which I spotted gliding below the glassy surface like pillowcases lost at sea. We alighted on Reiona, the atoll’s southernmost motu, for a hike. The ground was littered with coconuts and mushy from the guano and vegetation rotting in the tropical humidity, which made it prime grazing ground for the unsettlingly large coconut crabs we spotted hiding in the shadows. On the sandy fringes, sticks with red flags indicated turtle nesting sites. Swarms of birds — some 15 species call the atoll home — gyrated overhead wherever I looked.

The atoll hasn’t always been this lively: for decades, its islets were carpeted in coconut plantations, which made nesting a challenge. Pests, brought in as stowaways on expedition ships, preyed on eggs, turtle hatchlings, and other native wildlife. “Just a handful of years ago, rats would still run between your feet here,” Tehiana said, explaining how the Tetiaroa Society has helped eradicate them from the atoll. Over the years, the organization’s efforts have helped native trees flourish, encouraging long-absent bird species (a couple of rare masked boobies among them) to return to nest.

*Left to right*: Brown noddies; The Brando’s cultural activities manager, Adelina Hanere.

By day three, the Wi-Fi in my villa had sputtered out, which frankly delighted me. I spent the remainder of my stay at a go-slow pace, alternating between dips in the pool and my own ha’apori fattening rituals at Bob’s Bar, swapping breadfruit for Polynesian hot dogs and coconut water for mai tais. I took long, lonely walks along the beach and over the sign-posted trails (alongside a warning to watch out for falling coconuts) that crisscrossed the jungle, tiny lizards shooting away from my feet with every step. At the Varua Te Ora spa, a therapist lathered me up in gardenia-scented monoi coconut oil and scrubbed my skin smooth with black Tahitian sand, leaving me feeling like one of those Polynesian princelings who dwelled here centuries ago.

But for all The Brando’s luxury trappings, it was the simple pleasures that stood out the most. One morning, I took out a kayak and paddled to Honuea, the only motu guests are allowed to visit without a guide. I slid across the glassy lagoon for well over an hour, watching curious noddy birds circle around my head and a lone eagle ray flutter past, paying me no mind. On Honuea, I dragged my kayak into a tiny cove and laid down in the warm sand. I could see the cloud-cloaked peaks of Tahiti on the blue horizon. As silvery fish shot through the shallows near my feet, I thought of something that Tehiana had said earlier: “We are fortunate that Marlon was the one who bought this atoll. It could’ve looked vastly different otherwise.”

The Brando crew putting on a Polynesian dance performance; Birds flocking above Ahurea. — *Left to right*: Birds flocking above Ahurea; the Brando crew putting on a Polynesian dance performance.

Making Tracks to Teriaroa

GETTING THERE

French Polynesia’s flag carrier Air Tahiti Nui connects the Tahitian capital of Papeete to Tokyo twice a week.

WHERE TO STAY

The Brando

Some high-end resorts can boast their private-island perch, but The Brando has the upper hand: it’s the sole occupant of the whole Tetiaroa atoll. The vibe is Crusoe-chic, with thatch-roofed beach villas and fresh coconuts at the drop of a hat (from US$3,200 a night).

InterContinental Tahiti Resort & Spa

Just 10 minutes from Faa’a International Airport, this tiki fever dream of bamboo furnishings, sprawling pools, and nightly Polynesian dance performances makes for a perfect pit stop between flight transfers (from US$304 a night).

This article originally appeared in the October/November 2024 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Atoll Order”).

How The Brando is Protecting Tahiti’s Tetiaroa Atoll