KALIBO, Aklan – Environment secretary Roy Cimatu ordered his regional directors to inventory emerging tourism sites in their respective areas.
He also told them to formulate management plans to avoid a similar problem akin to Boracay’s.
“I have instructed the regional directors to make an inventory of emerging tourist destinations in their areas and to craft management plans for them,” Cimatu said. “We want to make sure that the problem in Boracay will not be repeated.”
He added that they will “make sure that there is proper sewerage treatment facilities in the tourist sites, that the easement zones are followed and that there will be no encroaching in forestlands.”
According to Cimatu, the revenue that tourism brings to a municipality, especially a third-class municipality, is “very significant.”
But he warned that “if they focus only on development of the tourist destination and the projected revenues but fail to comply with environmental laws,” problems will arise in the future.
For his part, Environment regional director Jim O Sampulna assured that environment problems like those in Boracay will not happen to other ecotourism sites in Western Visayas.
“The Boracay Island experience has been an eye opener on the environmental problems plaguing our ecotourism sites. We will now work harder to strictly enforce environmental laws to avoid the same problems,” said Sampulna.
The Environment department is also studying the impact of tourism on wildlife and marine resources so that restrictions would be formulated. (With DENR Region 6/PN)
