Are We Losing Paradise?

ARE WE LOSING PARADISE?

by Antonio C. Antonio

July 1, 2014

I’ve been fairly blessed to have visited Boracay Island thrice in the last two decades.  But, sadly, I’ve also witnessed how it has morphed from a place we could practically call “paradise on earth” to an island where an environmental disaster is just waiting to happen… if it has not started to happen yet.

Travel and Leisure, an international travel magazine proclaimed Boracay Island as the best island in the world in 2012.  It is arguably the most popular tourist destination in the Philippines.  The island sits like a crown on the northernmost tip of the Island of Panay and the Province of Aklan.  Boracay is a dog-bone shaped island… approximately seven kilometers long and has a total land area of 10.32 square kilometers.

Sixty years ago, Boracay Island was barely inhabited… with only less than a hundred families, mostly of the Ati Tribe, living there.  Most of the island was covered by a natural forest.  Right now, almost 40% of the island has been cleared to make way for tourism development-related infrastructure… not to mention the additional housing for additional residents.

The abnormal increase in Boracay’s population and unregulated commercialization brought about three basic environmental problems:  a) Solid and liquid waste disposal; b) Land use conversion; and, c) Loss of biodiversity.  Boracay Island is a finite resource in terms of land area.  How on earth did someone even think of laying out a golf course on an island that is a little over 10 square kilometers?  Is there really even a minute sense in clear-cutting a forest area so that foreign tourists can enjoy the beach and play golf at the same time?

The level of business and opportunity Boracay Island offers cannot be debated.  Surely, it’s a big dollar earner… revenues from tourism both local and foreign are at an all-time high.  But is this sustainable?  The beauty of the island is the key to its continued economic success.  But beauty cannot be “Beloish” or “Calayanish”… beauty should be natural.  (My sincere apologies to Dr. Vicky Belo and Dr. Manny Calayan for coining these colloquial words.  Na-advertise naman din po kayo kahit paano.) Too much “make-overs” to nature and the environment in terms of infrastructure development is a perfect formula for environmental disasters.

The last time I visited Boracay Island was December 2013.  In this visit, I had a lengthy chat with Bryan S. Madera… a colleague in a group called “The UPlanders”.  He summarized the fate of the island with this statement:  “I’m saddened by what is going on here.  It’s an environmental disaster waiting to happen. I really cannot understand how Boracay, because of her beauty, will die because she is beautiful… her beauty will be the reason for her death.”

Just my little thoughts…