ENVIRONMENT-SRI LANKA: Hotel Shows Tourism Can be Eco-Friendly

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

KANDALAMA, Sri Lanka, Sep 14 1998 (IPS) - Every guest at the serene Kandalama Hotel, nestling in wooded, low hills about 200 km north of the Sri Lankan capital, leaves with a gift of a ‘neem’ sapling.

The medicinal plant which has myriad uses is according to the hotel management, a symbol of their commitment to conserving and nurturing the environment.

When the hotel project was unveiled in 1992, there were immediate protests from environmentalists and local villagers who feared the big hotel would be a burden on sparse water resources and denude the forest.

A vigorous campaign supported by politicians of the now ruling People’s Alliance government, then in the opposition, nearly torpedoed the project.

Six years later, the 160-room hotel run by the island’s Aitkin Spence group, which offers guests a “brush with nature”, has become a tourist site. Last year, apart from guests who came to stay, more than 100,000 Sri Lankans made day trips to see the hotel which has won international fame for being environmentally friendly.

Sculpted with the least possible disturbance to the natural terrain, and painted a dull black and green to blend with the countryside, the hotel has preserved even rocks and trees. Some 150 old trees that had to be removed, were replanted — an exercise which had a high 70 percent success rate, says project manager Ravi de Silva with pride.

With two of the hotel’s three sections built on stilts to allow rain water to flow unchecked, even the undergrowth was untouched. The natural growth now buzzes with insect life — countless butterflies, dragonflies and all kinds of winged creatures.

Two tame elephants led by mahouts spend the day by a lotus- studded tank while birds dart in the nearby trees. Their twittering and the mooing of cows are the only noise to break the stillness of the forest around the hotel built on land leased from the forest department.

The hotel management says they have greened the bald patches, left by slash-and-burn cultivation, around the hotel with saplings from their nursery which boasts of 3,000 varieties of indigenous plants.

The hotel’s presence has curbed illicit felling and poaching. In fact, some of the poachers have turned guides on jungle treks for foreign tourists who come away hugely impressed with the way Kandalama blends with nature.

For three successive years the hotel was proud recipient of the international Green Globe award, presented in recognition of its environmentally friendly track record.

Shorn of all ostentation and ornamentation, the hotel is furnished with only the barest of necessities, which was done deliberately so guests would not be distracted from the beauty of the natural surroundings, the management insists.

Corridors open out on to rocks, and even bathrooms are glass- fronted and curtainless so visitors can watch the sunlight playing on trees and monkeys gamboling on the rocks. Kandalama is a favourite also with birdwatchers who flock to Sri Lanka to see the 463 varieties of birds spotted in the country.

Also, quite unlike other hotels on the island, previously a tourist paradise until escalating Tamil militancy scared off droves of foreigners in the early 1990s, Kandalama is visited by day visitors. All are welcomed. No one is turned away.

The visitors, among them large groups of schoolchildren from the nearby villages, are treated to a guided tour of the hotel, which includes a stop at the very effective waste disposal system that de Silva calls the hotel’s “heart”.

The hotel works on the three “R” principle, he explains — “reduce the use of natural resources, re-use whatever possible and re-cycle the balance.”

All solid waste is sent to a piggery, and waste water is re- circulated for the roof garden. “We have two sewage treatment plants, and the sludge is sun-dried and turned into compost which is sold in 2-kg bags to guests interested in taking it home,” de Silva adds.

According to him, every drop of the 50,000 gallons of water the hotel uses daily is from tube wells that have been sunk. “Not a drop of water from the Kandalama tank has been touched,” the project manager asserts.

The environmental lobby, which was up in arms against the 750- million project, is satisfied and the surrounding villages content also because the bulk of the hotel’s 300-odd staff are local recruits.

Interestingly, the hotel has turned employees into environmental campaigners. A club set up by the employees is preaching eco-friendliness to schoolchildren, urging local communities to safeguard nature like the hotel has.

Kandalama is indeed Sri Lanka’s best known ecological success story, recommended to all those who are weary of asphalt and want to savour the peace of nature.