ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN-SRI LANKA: Repentant Industry Wants To Be Eco- Friendly

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Aug 15 1998 (IPS) - Aware that its tempting sun n’ sands image has spawned problems like environmental pollution and rampant sex tourism, Sri Lanka is seriously looking at eco- tourism as a sustainable alternative for growth.

At a recent meeting in Colombo, hoteliers and environmentalists met to chart out a plan for the long-term growth of tourism and see wether the tourist industry could blend with the abundant natural charm of the Indian Ocean island.

The industry, it was felt, should conform to the broad principles of sustainable development – adhere to laws that must be enacted; be sensitive to its social impact; and involve local people and the community.

“We are now coming back to what Sri Lankan tourism should have been in those early years. Tourism is not everything. Our cultural values, our environment is much more important than tourism,” acknowledged Tourism Minister Dharmasiri Senanayake.

Since 1966, when tourism became an industry under government control, foreign tourists have flocked to Sri Lanka’s sandy, palm- fringed beaches and visited the remains of its ancient and medieval kingdoms.

Now, hotels thickly dot the island’s south-western coastline, from Colombo to Galle on the tip of Sri Lanka, most of them flouting construction norms with hotel sewage and waste polluting the golden beaches and the sea for miles.

Environmentalists have complained that unrestricted tourist development was ruining the beaches and destroying plant and aquatic life, and the coral reefs that tourists were travelling to Sri Lanka to see.

But the Ministry of Tourism seemed to be paying more attention to the number of tourists than making the industry accountable and protecting the environment. By 2004, the government hopes one million foreign tourists will visit Sri Lanka, up 600,000 from the current average.

In addition, the number of hotel rooms would have to almost double to 21,000 – increasing the pressure on the environment and worsening the problems of local communities that have suffered from the loss of traditional livelihoods.

Speaking at the Colombo meeting, Aug. 7 and 8, Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, a World Bank consultant and currently teaching environmental management at the University of Colombo, said the conservation of natural habitats and the protection of bio- diversity were critical for the tourist industry.

“By improving incomes and welfare of local communities and simultaneously preserving physical and biological systems in protected areas, developing countries may pursue both environmental and development goals in a complimentary manner,” he advised.

Munasinghe was referring to the fact that resort complexes on the southern coast for instance are seen as island’s of plenty and affluence in a sea of poverty and underdevelopment. “While everything is done within a hotel complex, and that would include eco-friendly facilities, little has been done outside to help communities who may have been affected by the hotel,” he said.

The late realisation that tourism has to be responsible and environment-friendly has dawned on an industry that has suffered in the nineties from the fallout of the ongoing civil war between government troops and Sri Lankan Tamil rebels in the north.

Prof. Senaka Bandaranayake, the country’s best known archaeologist and now Vice-Chancellor of Sri Lanka’s University of Kelaniya, suggested that a “cultural highway” be developed covering the archaeological sites in the north-central region and a schedule of areas of unspoilt landscape, prepared.

The tiny island, some 65,000 sq-kms in area, packs a magnificent diversity — cultural, climatic and environmental — linked by a long and well-preserved history. For centuries, travellers and explorers like the Chinese traveller Fa Hsien have written of the beauty of this ancient land.

Under Sri Lanka’s master plan for tourism development, which runs from 1992 to 2001, emphasis has been laid on the need for sustainable development to ensure protection of physical and socio-cultural environment.

Hotel construction is much more stringent now with approvals for development required from the Central Environment Authority, the Coast Conservation Authority and the Urban Development Authority – all government agencies.

But, some industry experts believe that Sri Lanka may have ruined its chances of becoming a major eco-tourist destination by

not joining in the race sooner.

The government acknowledges that haphazard development of the industry in the formative years have partially damaged the coastal landscape. Tourism Minister Senanayake, who was chairman of the state Ceylon Tourist Board in the early 1970s, said there was an urgent need to review the impact of tourism in the last three decades. “We should find out where we went wrong,” he asserted.

It is important that the industry “use the environment,” he said, “but allow others to also use it in the future,” he pleaded.