AFTER the world-famous Boracay, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is targeting the rehabilitation of other ecotourism sites in the country that, like the island resort in the Municipality of Malay, Aklan Province, are also facing environmental concerns.
Environment Undersecretary for Solid Waste and Local Government Concerns Benny Antiporda said that after Boracay, the DENR may opt to take on Baguio, Puerto Galera, El Nido, Siargao, Subic, or Bohol.
“These are some of the areas that are being considered to be rehabilitated,” Antiporda, also deputy spokesman of Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu, told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview.
However, unlike in the case of Boracay, temporary closure to tourism activities may no longer be needed in these areas, considering that the DENR regional offices with jurisdiction over them have already started to crack the whip after President Duterte’s decision to declare the entire island of Boracay under a state of calamity.
“There are already actions on the part of the DENR in those areas,” he said, adding that there are positive signs that the business establishments, as well as the communities, are “responsive.”
Milestone
Less than a week before Boracay’s scheduled reopening to tourists on October 26, the DENR, which is spearheading the Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force (BIATF), claimed to have gained a significant milestone in the rehabilitation of the world-famous island paradise, particularly when it comes to addressing water pollution.
No less than the DENR chief said Boracay Island is no longer a “cesspool” because the BIATF had already stopped the direct discharge of untreated wastewater, particularly by commercial and residential establishments along the beachfront.
Water samples were taken for laboratory testing from the beaches, such as White Beach and Bulabog Beach, as early as September. These indicated that coliform levels are well within the standard for recreational purpose, particularly bathing or swimming.
ECC-compliant
A majority of the establishments, Antiporda added, have already complied with or have filed applications for the lifting of the suspension of their environmental compliance certificates (ECC).
“We have high compliance. But the Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force will stay close to Boracay. We will create our own office here to monitor all activities pertaining to the implementation of environmental rules and regulation. Those who failed to comply with all the requirements…will stay closed,” he said.
Without giving specifics, Antiporda said “majority” of the tourism-related establishments on Boracay have already complied with environmental laws.
Hits and misses
Environmental groups, however, criticized the DENR for failing to hit the hard targets, except for removing the cesspool tag, which it has foisted in its media releases.
Citing various news reports, Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE), called the Boracay rehabilitation a mere “spectacle.”
During the six-month full lockdown, Dulce said less than 10 percent of the establishments on the island have fully complied with the environmental laws.
He said even the DENR’s own commissioned study on the carrying capacity of Boracay indicates that the problem is not really the influx of tourists, but the overpopulation of Boracay. The number of tourists, from January to June or during the so-called off-season, he said, is even way below the maximum allowable number, which means, “undercapacity.”
“This means that the ecological footprint or effect of the people during this period is manageable. This only proves our point that Boracay should not have been subjected to full lockdown during the last four months that the island was closed to tourists,” he said.
Wetland rehab
Dulce said he smells “something fishy” in the DENR’s decision to partner with big corporations for the rehabilitation of Boracay’s wetlands.
“This will only give the big corporations [the opportunity] to bring in more tourists to recover their investment in the rehabilitation of the wetlands. It is our experience that it is not easy to stop big corporations from developing these areas based on the carrying capacity of their deep pockets instead of the ecosystem,” he said.
Unfortunately, Dulce said, despite what data indicate, the DENR claims success in the rehabilitation of Boracay “for so many reasons that never answer the hard data and hard-knock experiences of the people who lost their sources of basic living for six months.”
“Hard lessons must be learned from the mess that was the Boracay rehabilitation. The blind compliance of the Boracay Task Force with Duterte’s ‘cesspool’ showboating should never be repeated again. It made 36,000 workers suffer for six months with no significant rehab output to show for it, except the clean-beach PR,” he said.
According to Dulce, consultations with both experts and the communities themselves must be one of the basis of any way forward in the rehabilitation program that will supposedly lead up to December 2019.
“The same goes for their supposed plans to do the same lockdown on other ecotourism destinations, such as Palawan, Bohol, Puerto Galera, Siargao and the like,” he said.
According to Dulce, privatization also entails restriction of the public’s access to what should be part of the public commons.
“If rehabilitation and management of the wetlands are kept in the public domain through the government with a strong partnership with the local communities themselves, we can ensure that the ecotourism area’s operation will be based on the public’s interest of environmental safety and sustainability,” he said.
Sadly, he said, they did not see the DENR exploring its best option.
“They could have declared the wetlands as protected areas and set up the government-community cooperation on management, such as through the Community Resource Management Agreements under the Protected Areas scheme,” he added.
Sought for reaction, an apparently irked Antiporda hit back by questioning the legitimacy of Kalikasan-PNE.
“Who are these environmentalists? I don’t even know they exist,” he said.
Antiporda said what is important is that the people in Boracay are thankful for the government’s effort to rehabilitate Boracay.
“What is important is that the people here [in Boracay] are very happy, thankful and grateful for what we’ve done in Boracay,” he said.
Antiporda argued that the DENR has decided to tap the big corporations in rehabilitating Boracay’s wetlands because of their capacity.
Under the various memorandums of agreements, Boracay wetlands will be “adopted” by big corporations to revive the wetland ecosystems and develop them into ecotourism sites.
In an earlier interview, he said, the DENR is open to partnering with nongovernment organizations and people’s organizations as long as they have the capacity to rehabilitate the wetland ecosystems based on the plans of DENR experts.
However, he rejected the idea of allowing co-management of the wetlands by the community.
“The communities are the reasons why we have these problems. They encroached on these wetlands. Now, with our partnership with these big corporations, the big corporations will be the one to prevent illegal squatting in these ecosystems,” he said.
Image credits: Saiko3p | Dreamstime.com, Alexey Kornylyev | Dreamstime.com
1 comment
find where the other hennan resorts are, sure there’s some violation going on.