Populist
regimes are beginning to discover environmental protection as a fertile signature
issue. It is increasingly where the votes are. At least in small baby steps and
far from everywhere. While Poland’s logging of Europe’s last remaining (and
UNESCO-protected) primeval woodland of Białowieża has
incurred a final judgment imposing a €100,000
daily fine by the ECJ, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has discovered that “When
nature fights back, it does so with a vengeance.” His government imposed - and surprisingly upheld
- a ban
on open-pit mining and starts
to target polluting
steel mills.
Now, popular
Boracay Island in the Philippines was closed to visitors for six months due to massive
environmental problems. Starting
April 26, authorities
no longer permitted tourists to land on the island. Some 600 security forces
were deployed in total to secure and enforce the visitors ban. Administering
the “closure” alone amounts to a logistical
nightmare.
The quarantine
period until November is to be used to visit the island to fix the worst issues
and perform a clean-up mission. Many hotels, restaurants and shops on Boracay
are said to have, inter alia,
channeled their sewage including feces for years simply into the sea. President
Duterte is said to have
personally ordered the closure and to have called Boracay, where vacationing
tourists spent 21 million nights in 2017 alone, a “cesspool” - ordering his environmental
secretary to “clean the goddamn thing.”
Boracay, about
300 kilometers south of Manila, was voted “best
island in the world” by
Conde Nast Traveler in 2017. About 40,000 locals live on the island, most of
whom earn their livelihood from tourism. Real estate development has been another curse of popularity. The ban is estimated to cost tourism revenues
of some $2.75
million as 15% of the country’s 6.5 million tourists visit Boracay. The Philippine government plans to provide
emergency financial aid in the amount of some $109 million, although it has not
clarified how these funds will be distributed.
