'Overtourism is killing Big Sur': activists raise banner in California vacation spot
Residents of California’s Big Sur are showing signs – specifically a large, yellow sign - that they are fed up with tourists.
Over the weekend, a banner declaring “Overtourism is killing Big Sur” was hung from Bixby Bridge, dominating any would-be Instagram-perfect photos of the scene.
The California Department of Transportation was made aware of the banner Saturday morning, said spokesman Jim Shivers. The local sheriff’s department removed the sign within hours. The group behind the sign calls itself “Take Back Big Sur” and is comprised of about two dozen locals, according to SFGate. A permit is needed to put up signs, Shivers said.
“Our responsibility every day is to ensure the safety of the traveling public,” he said. “We want to make sure that we don’t have unregulated or unapproved signage or banners within the right of way which could prove to be a distraction to the public.”
Tourism injected $2.85bn into the economy of Monterey county, on California’s central coast, in 2017, up 3.5% from the previous year. Tourists began to overwhelm Big Sur starting in 2005, Butch Kromland, of the Community Association of Big Sur, told local news station KSBW.
“The barrier between appropriate and inappropriate behavior, that barrier has melted away in a lot of ways and I think that is a result of normalizing things in way via social media,” Kromland said.
The popularity of Bixby Bridge in particular has grown after its frequent appearances in Big Little Lies, an HBO show set in the county.
A video published on 4 July showed the heavy traffic traversing the bridge ahead of the weekend. In May, an Instagram account called Big Sur Hates you began shaming visitors for inappropriate or damaging behavior, by reposting their photos with critical comments.
Ironically, it is Instagram itself that has helped drive visits to natural wonders like the central coast.
The Instagram account Public Lands Hate You was created in 2018 to call attention to bad behavior in public parks, sharing photos with its more than 57,000 followers. It encourages visitors to avoid destructive actions like feeding wildlife, trampling on local flowers and setting off fireworks.
A petition was created on Change.org to force Facebook and Instagram to create features to allow users to report irresponsible behavior at nature sites. It now has more than 19,000 signatures.