BACK in my healthier days, I attended a quite expensive training on ecotourism in Subic. The training was so-so as most of the resource speakers were unimpressive. Their inputs came straight from the books, and not so much from actual field experience.
Most of my co-participants were practitioners in various environmental fields, community coastal resource management and protected areas. I came from a community forestry background.
We felt that the well-paid speakers spent too much time inside the four walls of academia and not so much the nitty-gritty of field work.
One of the speakers failed to give concrete examples of carrying capacity for trekkers in protected areas. The most he can manage to give as a case study was to present Soylent Green, a 1973 American dystopian thriller movie.
The gist of the movie tackled 20th century industrialization that led to overcrowding and Earth-wide pollution. Natural resources were already exhausted, nourishment of the population is provided by Soylent Industries.
The film showed extinct forests, wild animals, rivers and ocean life, and where human corpses were converted into Soylent Green. Nice fictional movie, though.
Although not a forester, I do have quite an extensive background on community organizing (read: poor communities), working for non-government organizations.
That ecotourism training was meant to enhance my technical knowledge and skills of conserving forest trees. As an alternative to timber utilization, sustainable tourism was an answer to non-timber grassroots development.
Tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industries and is a major source of income for many countries. Being a people-oriented industry, tourism also provides many jobs which have helped revitalize local economies.
Sustainable tourism is defined as “tourism that respects both local people and the traveler, cultural heritage and the environment.” It seeks to provide people with an exciting and educational holiday.
Recently, this paper featured a concrete example of sustainable tourism in Sipalay. The local government unit (LGU) has boosted efforts to boost sustainable tourism thru ecological solid waste management.
The LGU has worked with Sea Waste Education to Eradicate Plastic, and started eliminating the single use of plastic especially in the city hall. The LGU is poised to enact a zero-waste ordinance that will prohibit the use of plastics in the city’s market and other commercial establishments. Vendors will utilize leaves and other environment-friendly packing materials.
Other sustainable tourism practices implemented during the festival is the creation of Wind Garden using recycled materials.
Congratulations to Sipalay for your green awareness on the ground.
bqsanc@yahoomail.com