“A Call for Responsible Tourism”
(Erico Joseph T. Canete)
Bohol is blessed with its natural beauty, fascinating eclectic culture, and rich colonialist history.
These aspects make Bohol and the Boholanos unique and distinct. People from all over the globe
come and visit to behold the beauty of Bohol, introspect our culture and learn from our past. These
blessings allure our local government and business sectors to use these as means to alleviate poverty
thru job opportunities and tourism infrastructures.
Just recently, Boholanos rejoiced as the 216 th United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) executive board held in Paris declared Bohol as the first global geo-park in
the Philippines. With this new inclusions, there are now 195 geoparks in 48 countries. This signifies
that the natural land formation and marine resources of Bohol are recognized as among the world’s
best.
Sources say that “UNESCO Global Geopark status is valid for 4 years. After this, the Geopark needs
to be revalidated in order to retain the status by maintaining an international standard of quality.
It is imperative then that Boholanos need to protect all our ecological assets by instilling, coupled
with praxis, the value of responsible stewardship over our bounty. Meaning, the sites must be
“managed with a holistic concept of protection, education, and sustainable development,” as per
UNESCO’s advice.
Few days back, it was reported and even subjected to a committee meeting in the Sangguniang
Panlalwigan the undesirable act of constructing a resort or a tourist attraction at the base of an
identified chocolate hill in a northern town in Bohol. A paradox! This is contradictory to the thrust
of preserving and conserving our nature’s bounty. It is unthinkable likewise to scrape protected
chocolate hills to give way to an access road to the subject area.
This mess is parallel to the feeding of whale sharks in one of the coastal towns of Bohol. News
spreads that the whale sharks are gone out in the area. It’s not surprising considering their
migratory nature.
Pope Francis hits the mark when he mentioned in his encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si”,
“Where profits alone count, there can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature, its phases of decay
and regeneration or the complexity of ecosystems which may be gravely upset by human
intervention”.
When do we learn the value of responsible stewardship? When can we free ourselves from the
disguise of alleviating poverty via tourism at the expense of mother nature’s cry? When can we
realize the need for an equilibrium between economy and ecology?
Unless this would be addressed, Bohol would be defeated by forces from within.