Garbage piles up between hotels in Ngwe Saung. Pic: Douglas Long

INCREASINGLY, tourists are becoming aware of the effects of travel on the environment and taking steps to reduce the impact of their journey.

The “green” movement has become a force in the global tourism industry with companies offering carbon offsets for flights or to contribute to community projects in the area visited.

But tourism operators also have a responsibility to ensure the preservation of the environment. In Myanmar, not all seem to realise how important this is – least of all for their business.

Tourism experts in Yangon are concerned some of the leading tourist drawcards in Myanmar – the beaches at Ngapali, Ngwe Saung and Chaungtha – will soon lose their reputation as places of beauty because of poor planning, especially regarding waste disposal.

Dr Nay Zin Latt, the secretary of Myanmar Hoteliers Association and chairman of AMBO Hotel at Chaungtha Beach, said that to continue to attract visitors, a clean environment is as crucial as good facilities.

He said Chaungtha Beach, in particular, was suffering the effects of the many tourists who visit each year.

“Why is this happening? Because operators are only meeting the needs of visitors, there is no plan for maintaining the environment,” he said.

“But we have time; Chaungtha has only recently started to suffer from this problem. We can create a better environment if we can develop a kind of revitalisation plan,” he added.

Chaungtha is not alone. Dr Nay Zin Latt said he did not see any proper planning for the environment at any of Myanmar’s other beaches either.

“Frankly, we’re just talking theoretically and academically about the issue of environment protection because I haven’t seen any proper planning in regards to sustainability,” he said.

Mr Oliver E Soe Thet, the official advisor for environmental issues, agreed that Chaungtha has a “dirty image”.

“At one time Chaungtha was a good clean beach. But when I was there in 2005 for movie production I was shocked – there was a lot of garbage as well as total disorder in the sense of buildings and construction,” he said.

“Ngwe Saung Beach seems to me the most clean when compared with Ngapali and Chaungtha but it also has the smallest number of visitors and nearly no local community.”

He said the beaches are generally not being polluted by the beachgoers but by the service providers – hotels, small restaurants, public transport and shops.
Hotels and restaurants often cause the most damage by tossing tourism garbage into the forests, beaches or paddy fields near the beach, Mr Oliver E Soe Thet said.

Chaungtha is not the only beach facing problems – at Ngapali, the resorts managed to turn a coconut forest near the beachfront into a garbage dump, and rubbish was ending up on the beach.

“Three beach resorts were putting all their garbage into a beautiful and sensitive ecological area, spoiling it greatly,” he said.

He said local authorities must ensure a more sustainable tourism in a clean environment – and, in this case, they did. The Thandwe City Development Committee (TCDC) created extra garbage dumps in less-sensitive areas, a simple solution to an obvious problem.

But the problem is not just limited to beaches, he said.

But, as was the case at Ngapali beach, there were also very well-known hotels causing the worst environ-mental destruction,” he said.

“Hotels near the Ayeyarwady River in Bagan also pump their septic waste directly into the river and there are very big and dirty garbage dump stations on the riverbanks next to the hotels.”

“Recently, I received a comment from a German tourist who used to always jog when he was in Bagan. He said on his last visit he noticed a huge garbage dump, from a popular hotel, beside the river in Old Bagan. He said it was shame and not fair to all local people living there,” Mr Oliver E Soe Thet said.

But he believes the problem at Chaungtha is the most pressing and suggested that a solution would be for all hoteliers and restaurant owners to work together to create a master plan for future conservation and preserving their livelihood.

“Everyone needs to get involved and get active. For example, the schools need to make children understand the they have better future business and economical chances only with a clean Chaungtha Beach,” he said.

This is something that may finally be dawning on a few tourism operators.
A hotel manager at Ngwe Saung, which promotes itself as beautiful and unspoiled, agreed cleanness is crucial to attracting visitors to the area.

“Nobody wants to come to a dirty beach, no matter how good the facilities are,” said U Maung Maung Aye, the manager of Silver View Hotel.

The manager at another Ngwe Saung hotel said Myanmar guests in particular needed more education on maintaining the cleanness of the beach but this was partly the responsibility of the hotels.

Dr Nay Zin Latt said government authorities, tourism operators and visitors were responsible for maintaining the clean environment at the beaches.
“When authorities come out with regulations to ensure preservation, operators should follow the regulations and educate the visitors. Then visitors should pass on their understanding and cooperation,” he said.

Mr Oliver E Soe Thet said it was important for tourism operators to realise this as the greater responsibility laid on them to preserve the environment.

“If you sell a service and earn money through tourism you have a duty to maintain a clean environment everywhere – not just on the beach. This should be built into your charge,” he said.

But visitors also had a large role to play, he said.

“In Ngapali I started a project that is funded by tourists who frequently come to Myanmar. We converted a trishaw into a vehicle to carry garbage in Ngapali,” he said.

A garbage collector drives the trishaw daily from Mazin Airport to Ngapali Beach and collects all the plastic and other garbage along the roadside, he said.

“This is a direct, active program that will clean the environment and help raise awareness in the whole community. I hope that we can get support for similar project from hotels, restaurants and shops in the future.”