The development provides a "unique opportunity to conserve and enhance the environment", according to Trump International.
Trump was quoted in Britain's Guardian newspaper as saying he is "saving" the dunes: "It's a piece of land which is disappearing ...it's blowing all over the place."
But environmental groups, including government conservation agency Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and pressure group Sustainable Aberdeenshire, have criticised the plans to stabilise a rare, 4,000-year-old dynamic sand dune system -- one of the top five dune habitats in Britain.
SNH says the development would effectively destroy a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) that covers about a third of the resort and is an important habitat for flora and fauna.
"It's all a marketing device to sell high value properties: it's exploitation of our resource and it's a particularly sensitive and beautiful resource that we don't want to give up," Sustainable Aberdeenshire spokesman Mickey Foote said.
Some 150 protestors are due to march on Saturday.
Over and above environmental concerns, the "No to Trump, Menie Not Money" action group, which has organised the march, believes the proposals will blight the landscape and lead to the loss of the public's right to roam over the dunes.
"Turn Menie into a golf course, and everyone's right of access no longer applies," it says on its Web site (www.meniescotland.co.uk).
But, for all of those against Trump, there are as many for.
"Stop shilly shallying and come out in favour of the Trump golf development," writes Norman Wilson, from Forglen, Turriff, in the letters page of the local paper, the Press & Journal.
Economic development and tourism agencies -- Scottish Enterprise and its Scottish Development International arm, Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce and VisitScotland -- have also come out in support.
(Editing by Steve Addison and Paul Casciato)
