Malta's beaches are many things at once: places to swim, socialise and escape the summer heat, sources of income for businesses and concession operators, and increasingly, spaces which remain busy well after the sun has gone down.

But they are also natural habitats, and this summer's loggerhead turtle nesting season has offered an uncomfortable reminder of what can happen when there is little room left between the two.

Nature Trust Malta described this year's season as "very unusual," after 11 loggerhead turtles attempted to come ashore without a single confirmed nest being recorded. Had those false crawls resulted in nests, the organisation said, Malta would instead have experienced a record year.

There may be several explanations for what happened. Nature Trust President Vincent Attard pointed towards unusual conditions in the Central Mediterranean and said climate change was among the factors being studied, while turtle nesting naturally varies between years.

Yet Malta has another difficulty which cannot be ignored: our beaches are small, intensively used and, in Attard's words, some are becoming "24-hour beaches."

That description should prompt a wider discussion about how Malta uses the limited natural spaces it has left.

The issue is not that people should be discouraged from enjoying beaches, nor that commercial activity should disappear from them.

Beaches are an important part of Maltese life and of the country's tourism product, particularly during the summer months, but enjoying them cannot mean assuming that every stretch of sand must be available for human activity around the clock.

This summer provided examples of that tension, where at Armier, a turtle reportedly encountered deckchairs during an attempted crawl.

Light pollution, noise and overcrowding are other factors which can make already limited beaches less hospitable to nesting turtles.

Nobody can say that any one of these factors explains why Malta recorded no nests this year, and it would be simplistic to blame human disturbance alone for a season which scientists themselves are still seeking to understand.

But the absence of certainty is not an argument for doing nothing.

If turtles are returning to Maltese shores, then their presence must form part of how beaches are managed.

That could mean stricter enforcement against obstacles being left on beaches, greater control of unnecessary lighting and disturbance during nesting periods, or identifying locations where activity can reasonably be reduced at particular hours.

Other Mediterranean countries have demonstrated that tourism and turtle conservation do not have to be competing interests.

Attard pointed to protected beaches in Greece and Turkey, where turtle monitoring itself attracts volunteers and eco-tourists. Malta cannot replicate every measure adopted by countries with far longer coastlines, but its limited space makes sensible management more important, not less.

This season may ultimately prove to be an anomaly, and next year could bring several successful nests. Nature does not operate according to predictable annual targets.

What Malta can control, however, is the environment these animals encounter when they reach our shores.

The challenge is therefore not to choose between beaches for people and beaches for wildlife, but to recognise that both have a claim to the same limited coastline.

If Malta is fortunate enough to have loggerhead turtles coming to its shores, making a little room for them should not be too much to ask.