Consider the impact 6.5 billion people have on the
Earth's natural environment.
Television, the press and our educational institutions
remind us daily that the environment is both beautiful and fragile, in
decline. Although this is intended to promote concern, the sheer magnitude
of the problem can seem overwhelming, inducing a sense of helplessness and
apathy in the average person.
Ironically, apathy is one of the chief forces behind
environmental destruction. In- sufficient information is published regarding
what an individual can and should do about the decline. This article means
to empower you by defining "eco-tourism" (a term sometimes loosely thrown
about), and creating a proactive roadmap to protect the future of Thailand
and the world.
The Eco-tourism Association of Australia has drafted a
body of international standards for the emerging eco-tourism industry. They
aim to both define effective standards and help consumers, governments and
protected area managers identify the genuine article. Their Nature and
Eco-tourism Accreditation Program (NEAP) allows businesses to become
certified as compliant with the best practices and standards of this
emerging industry.
Thailand has set aside nearly 12 percent of its land as
protected areas. Compared with the one or two percent protected by most
other nations, including the United States and Canada, that suggests a
staggering commitment, and makes Thailand a prime candidate to adopt NEAP
standards and keep its lucrative tourism industry sustainable.
Where Thailand may improve in the eco-tourism stakes is
in bridging the gap between intention and reality. On paper, many Thai laws
protect the natural environment. As in many developing countries, law
enforcement is often limited by lack of resources compounded by tendencies
to allow money to buy its way past legal loopholes.
Most
environmental issues are basically economic in nature. Bypassing the law
with money is not peculiar to Thailand. The world over, it is simply more
immediately profitable to forego the necessary steps to protect the land and
sea. After all, business people want a return on their investments, and the
quicker the better. But that isn't the end of the story. The vote doesn't
just rest with the board of directors of the many corporations and
businesses willing to compromise the environment for profit. It ultimately
comes down to the "you and me" factor. We decide whether to support these
enterprises through our own consumption of their products. Do we buy the
room at the cheaper hotel that dumps raw sewage into the bay? Do we eat the
cheaper shrimp from a farm that dumps its untreated waste into the bay or
plows up the fragile reefs with push nets? Do we pay for a picture of
ourselves posing with a wild animal that was illegally poached from a
national forest? Do we buy a property from a developer who cheated the
environment to squeeze in more buildings at a lower cost? Do we book the
cheapest tour instead of the one that best protects the environment? The
answer is unfortunately, yes, we do.
This is that apathy, referred to above, that's
responsible for the world-wide decline in bio-diversity. Without such
apathy, the greedy don't profit. And the motive to destroy, to pollute, is
missing. Your money is your vote. Vote your conscience, and you're taking a
big step in the right direction.
This is why NEAP represents such an important step in the
right direction for Thailand. Certification, together with a means of
assigning accountability (see the accompanying sidebar on NEAP), enables
tourists to identify tourism products and packages that are sustainable and
run according to ecologically sound principles. In this way, consumers can
decide where to put their money, and in turn put economic pressure on other
companies to comply with international standards.
Many environmentally conscious individuals on Phuket,
including business owners, work hard to protect and promote the beauty of
this ecologically fragile region. These green warriors spoke this month with
Phuket Magazine about the major ecological issues facing Thailand.
Thom Henley is an environmentalist and an educator.
Having spearheaded efforts to preserve large tracts of Canadian forestland,
Thom is now concerned with ensuring the survival of some of the world's
oldest and richest tropical forests. As the mangrove trees disappear under
economic pressure for alternate land use, for example, scientists scramble
to understand and document the relationships between the mangroves and
keystone species in other types of forest. And, according to Thom, one major
concern with local rainforests is declining seed-mover populations: "Without
the gibbons, flying foxes and hornbills, the next generation of the forest
is doomed, because it has evolved to depend on these keystone species to
distribute its seeds. I'd say the single greatest challenge this nation
faces is in loss of bio-diversity."
Other concerns include toxins and pollutants, and the
build-up of sediment in the water table. Nearly 88 percent of Thailand's
mangrove forest has been cleared, usually for rubber plantations or prawn
farms. Although there are laws to protect what remains, the existing forest
continues to be threatened by the chemistry of these two industries. One of
the main compounds used in the rubber manufacturing process is hydrochloric
acid. This highly toxic chemical, used as a fixing agent, together with the
many other agents used in the industry, finds its way into the water table,
disrupting the many important microorganisms of a complex and fragile
habitat. Prawn farms often dump untreated effluent waste, which is extremely
high in nitrates and other toxic chemicals, directly into the ocean. This
kills the surrounding coral and the huge array of sea life it hosts.
Nalinee Thongtham and Sombat Poovachiranon are scientists
working with the Research Center for Bio-Diversity (see this month's perso-
nality profile p.44on Nalinee.)This organization presents an instrument of
research, education and enforcement of Thai environmental law. But, given
its broad scope of responsibility, Nalinee readily admits that a staff of 40
lacks the resources necessary to protect the coastline by themselves. They
have embarked on a programme to step up their enforcement capability by
recruiting and training volun- teers. During Novem- ber 2003 alone, due to
this effort, seven illegal fishing vessels using pushnets were seized and
impounded. But Sombat's chief concern is not the illegal fishing: "In
Thailand, coastal development is a very serious issue. I don't worry as much
about the illegal fishing industry. It is the construction, the heavy rains,
and the sediment runoff from barren land that poses the most serious threat
to the coastal water quality. You can go to jail for collecting a single
piece of coral, but you can put in a large development and destroy a huge
area of coral with impunity."
Highlighting the issue of economics versus the
environment, the rapid growth of the tourist industry has brought with it
the need to provide infrastructure to support the nearly 10 million tourists
who visit Thailand annually. The construction of roads, shops, resorts and
bungalows, often along the most pristine stretches of coastline, has taken
its toll in the form of pollution and sediment that flows into the sea.
People who have been here only 10 years can testify that, where once they
could see their feet clearly in chest-deep water, now, with the rapid
development of the resort community, they cannot see their hands in front of
their face. Here, as everywhere, it gets worse when the heavy rains come and
treatment facilities cannot sustain adequate levels of water quality. In
addition to the torrent of sediment contained in the run-off from recently
developed land, the telltale presence of chloroform bacteria, heavy metals
and chemical pollutants appear in the bays from untreated human wastewater.
As owner/operator of a sea-kayaking eco-tourism company,
John Gray is busy every day educating people concerning Phuket's ecosystem.
When asked about his triumphs and frustrations, John gladly elaborated. "My
tour was the first operation of its kind here, and it was successful
perhaps too visibly successful." Today, John has many imitators and
competitors. "My biggest frustration is that the original intention behind
taking tourists to the sea caves was to educate then and create
environmental consciousness. The problem is that sea kayaking is a lot of
fun, and the intention has been obscured by fierce competition to grab
tourist revenue."
This environmental educator has witnessed other companies
recklessly flood sensitive areas with too many kayaks, providing zero
education, damaging the very areas he sought to protect. No quitter, John
has fought back by trying to set and promote industry standards.
"Eco-tourism is about education. I still believe that education is the best
place to put my efforts. Getting people to care about these areas requires
understanding, and understanding requires education. On my tour we take the
time to do it right, but that isn't immediately obvious to the average
tourist, and we lose out to the companies who compete only on price of the
tour instead of the quality."
Robert Grifin- berg is managing director of Siam Safari,
an elephant trekking business that has successfully conducted a high quality
eco-tourism enterprise for over 10 years. Robert's company also has many
imitators. It's a continual challenge to differentiate his business from
trekking companies who care only about making money. Siam Safari cares about
elephants and about their living and working environment.
Originally, the Thai elephant was a wild denizen of the
forest. Then it was a beast of burden used for war, for building, for
logging and for clearing land. Privately owned elephants are still legally
viewed as livestock in Thailand. But those days are largely past history for
the elephant, and, without work, the elephants in Thailand were suffering.
The problem is that elephants are exceptionally intelligent and highly
social creatures. They aren't happy unless they are with other elephants.
Keeping just one is ill advised, even dangerous in many cases. They eat up
to 200 kilos of food per day, so keeping several unemployed elephants on
hand is problematic even for the independently wealthy. Elephants must earn
their keep.
Siam Safari has helped create a new industry for them,
and has been instrumental in establishing the Elephant Help Foundation, an
elephant conservation programme. They have also pushed, on a volunteer
basis, for trekking industry standards that include having a full-time,
qualified elephant veterinarian on board, highly trained caretakers
(mahouts), adequate waste disposal systems, proper diet, and tour safety.
All this has helped to distinguish Siam Safari as one of only three
companies recognized by the Thai government conference on trekking
standards. The company has also received international awards for
eco-tourism, most recently Best Overseas Tourism Venture 2003, from the
British Guild of Travel Writers.
