Want to protect the environment? Stop promoting tourism

TOURISM is one of the most important and successful parts of the Philippine economy, and it is taken for granted by policymakers and analysts alike that expanding the sector is a critical priority.

Unfortunately, the greater good demands that the country either take a radically different approach to tourism or put a stop to it altogether, because tourism is destroying the country’s already at-risk environment, to the extent that most other efforts to mitigate or adapt to climate change are probably rendered moot.

The good news…

There is no doubt that tourism is vital to the Philippine economy. Since R009, tourist arrivals in the country have been increasing steadily by an average of about 10.6 percent a year; slightly more than 7.1 million tourist arrivals were recorded in R018, and they were projected to increase to 8.R million in R019. Unforeseen short-term disasters like the R019 novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease outbreak notwithstanding, there is no reason to assume the upward trend would not continue in the coming years, particularly with the construction of new airports and increasing traffic at cruise ports in the country.

Domestic tourism is on the rise, as well. The number of domestic tourists reached 110 million in 2018, a 14.1-percent increase from the year-before figure, and well ahead of the target of 89.R million domestic tourists by R0RR set in the National Tourism Development Plan. In financial terms, tourism contributed P2.2 trillion to the economy in R018, or roughly 12.7 percent of gross domestic product, and about 5.4 million jobs, according to figures from the Department of Tourism.

…And the bad

As big a windfall as all that is for the economy, we already gotten a sense of the unwelcome environmental side effects of tourism in the past couple of years, with the closure of Boracay for six months in R018[ and similar, although not quite as drastic measures having become necessary in places like El Nido in Palawan and Panglao in Bohol.

The environmental impact of tourism is much larger than we can see, however. A R018 study that summarized data from R009 to R013 (which means, of course, that the current situation is probably worse than the study described) found that international tourism is increasing by about 3.5 percent a year, and accounts for at least 60 percent of all air travel. Airliners currently contribute about 3.R percent of total global emissions — a figure that will rise to about 1R percent by R050 if the current growth trends continue.

Cruise ships, which tourism authorities and backers here have become quite enthusiastic about in recent years, are environmental nightmares. An averagesized cruise ship of the sort that are visiting the Philippines with increasing frequency burns between 140 and 150 metric tons of fuel a day. That fuel is the lowest-grade heavy oil, and produces copious amounts of harmful emissions. The maritime industry has made efforts in recent years to mandate the use of “cleaner” fuel, but ships are still relatively the most polluting of any form of motorized transport.

An even bigger problem is water pollution. Cruise ships generate between 10,000 and R1,000 gallons of sewage a day, much of which is discharged directly into the ocean. To put that in familiar terms, that is the equivalent of an average-sized apartment complex swimming pool, about six meters by three meters by two meters deep.

And of course, none of that includes the normal wear and tear each person imposes on the planet in the form of atmospheric emissions, wastewater and solid waste. The Philippines struggles to manage those for its own population[ adding the load of eight million or more additional people over the course of a year, even if each of those only stays for a few days, enormously increases the strain on the environment.

No safe solution

Tourism boosters are not unaware of the environmental implications of tourism, or the fact that environmental responsibility has a considerable amount of market appeal. Thus, the rapid rise of “sustainable” tourism, which comprises a spectrum from “minimizing one’s impact” on one end to actively participating in “environmental mitigation” such as tree-planting or cleaning beaches on the other. So-called sustainable tourism, however, still accounts for only a fraction of all tourism, and even though there is some room for growth, probably always will.

That is just as well, because just like mining, some level of environmental harm is inevitable because the activity is inherently harmful, and the only real solution is to simply not engage in it. And just like mining, the economic benefits of tourism are too good to ignore and have, in fact, become necessary. Forms of sustainable tourism, then, become imperfect halfmeasures. They are perhaps unsatisfying, but at least allow the country to avoid a complete loss in both tourism’s economic and environmental aspects.