Mushrooming Hotel Trade on St Martin's Island
Posted on 21. Feb, 2008 by Mikey Leung in Best of Bangladesh, Editorials
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~story and photo by Belinda Meggitt~
Originally published in the New Age, Feb. 13, 2008. More photos available here.
For a country that blossoms with national pride, the majority of Bangladeshis fail to respect the country’s natural wonders.
St Martin’s Island, where once thousands of migratory birds sought refuge, turtles laid eggs and coral grew, now bustles with migratory tourists and growing piles of plastic. Economic development drives tourism, but what tourists and hotel owners fail to acknowledge is their impact. The gold rush of tourism to St Martin’s Island will be short-lived unless changes are made immediately.
Only a few years ago, the island was an ecological refuge. ‘It was the best place for turtle nesting and even schoolchildren protected the nests,’ recalls Elisabeth Mansur, Chief Executive Officer of Guide Tours. ‘The biodiversity was truly amazing.’
Tourists were still able to visit, but it was a form of adventure tourism. The rocky journey – via a country boat crammed with the islands supplies – limited the number of tourists, as did the one beach hut. But the tourists that came were rewarded by natural beauty, an experience that didn’t resemble a Thai beach Mecca. Now, four large vessels ply the crossing daily during high season. Most tourists stay anywhere from three hours to a little over 24. It’s not hard to imagine why the island is disappearing in a state of disrepair.
Mansur says eco-tourism was discussed at length before the hotel explosion in 2005. There was a plan to maintain St Martin’s biodiversity.
‘Private industry sat for many months making a good development plan of how soft-ecotourism and responsible travel could develop,’ says Mansur. ‘But that’s when the government went ahead and opened the land rights for people from the mainland.’
The tourist gold rush was funded from the outside, and it looks just like that. As you approach the island, garish concrete monoliths litter the beach side dwarfing the small unobtrusive local bamboo village huts. Internally, hotel rooms resemble prison cells with stains up and down the walls, but it is nothing a good paint job couldn’t fix.
Nonetheless most hotel owners refuse to focus on upkeep when hotel rooms are fully booked during the peak season. They then leave the island with their pockets bulging after just four months’ work and return next year to repeat the cycle.
This same lack of care permeates the environment. Hotels are not managing their wastewater, causing damage to fragile coral reefs and marine biodiversity. Plastic bottles and litter float in the ocean or lay strewn on the beach. The scene resembles a battlefield where dead carcasses lie, yet these ones don’t decompose. A local shop owner stated: ‘There is a lot of plastic waste and it can’t be broken down, we all know it causes a lot of environmental damage.’
A change in wildlife patterns is a symbol of that. ‘There used to be a lot of migratory birds,’ recalled the shop owner, ‘but now they don’t come due to the number of crows.’ Crows are scavenger birds that reflect the extent of rubbish polluting the island.
Turtle nesting has likewise decreased. When questioned, fisherman and local shop owners all spoke of the marked decrease in numbers. Among the reasons proposed were the increase use of dragnets by fisherman that turtles get stuck in, hotel lights on the beach that deter nesting and even large tourist boats interrupting their path. No matter what the proposed reason, an easy hypothesis to conclude is that tourism is having an impact –– an impact that will permanently change St Martin’s Island, unless the form of tourism changes.
Amongst this destructive development, locals are forced to maintain their business. Largely excluded from the tourist labour force, they continue with their traditional fishing lifestyle. Fisherman use dragnets in a desperate search for fish and it is not uncommon to see small sharks, even endangered hammerhead sharks, for sale at the local market.
Tourist inflation is also evident. Local village children are now begging for Tk 100 rather than one, a familiarity that stings like tourism in Nepal. Yet a little initiative can go a long way and some children even offer their services as guides, or their boats to go fishing.
Tourism development can be a positive force, but it has to be managed appropriately. ‘You don’t have to discourage people not to go, but they should know what’s happening,’ states Mansur.
Responsible travel is an approach to travel that minimises negative environmental and cultural impacts, but encourages an understanding and transference of knowledge. It is an approach to travel that is sustainable and will bring lasting benefits to Bangladesh’s economy. It is not a quick financial fix. As a stance against the lack of responsible travel witnessed in St Martin’s, Guide Tours has recently removed it from their packages.
What stance will you take?
