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There is no doubt in the tourist industry that an intact environment is a precious
good that needs special care. The slogan 'gentle tourism' is no mere eyewash: It is a fact that many tourists are rather sensitive
in this respect. A rubbish heap in an otherwise beautiful countryside or next to a
magnificent temple
can spoil the experience completely. Therefore it is to everybody’s
advantage to work for a clean environment. |
The
infamous resources- and countryside-devouring tourism so well known in other countries so far doesn’t exist in
Myanmar. One of the most clinching proofs are the numerous new golf greens in
neighboring Thailand, where farmers and golf courses compete for the scarce water - the
outcome is predictable... |
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We are confident to have the means to make the owners of hotels and
restaurants see our point in this context: No orderly garbage disposal
and sewage treatment - no clients from our side!
Please get us right: We don’t
expect to be able to easily arouse any environment consciousness. From our
point of view it would be a great leap forward if all those involved
in tourism would realise the imprtance of that goal. In this aspect we take
great care to make sure that our contract hotels have a regular garbage
disposal. The same applies to sewage treatment.
In fact the problem of
garbage is a relatively new one in this country: Non-degradable garbage (meaning
any garbage which cannot be eaten by livestock) was virtually unknown until the
1980s. Since then the introduction of plastic bags has put a heavy toll on the
environment.
Another
problem we observe is the ever increasing number of souvenir dealers. I have seen
many traditional markets going down the drain: Once there was a nice market
where local people sold vegetable, fruits etc; it market attracted tourists
and suddenly the first souvenir dealers turned up and by paying higher rents to
the market authorities, they pushed the traditional dealers, which might have been selling
there for decades, aside, whereas thes dealers finally lost their livelihood.
We feel that we
shouldn’t encourage such developments and boycott those markets dominated by
souvenir dealers. The saddest example of such a development is the formerly
famous 'Floating Market' at Lake Inle. Nowadays you won’ t find any
vegetable seller there...
In this way the souvenir sellers are killing their own
business too but unfortunately they don’t realize it...therefore we hope to influence the
authorities concerned to put an end to this practice.
Every tour guide in this corner of the world is aware of the problem of noise - clients who suffer from a lack of sleep are difficult clients!
For me it’s always amazing to see that people in Myanmar as well as in
neighbouring countries don’t seem to have a problem with noise at all. How
many times have I envied the man slumbering like a baby next to a concrete
mixer on a rather busy road!
Unbelievable! Therefore it is not always an easy task to make the locals
realize the problem...
Nevertheless we are sure that we can contribute at least
a little to make our client’s nights more quiet. Very often this requires only
a minor effort achieve this goal - generators might be too close to the guest
rooms;
bus drivers may run up their engines in the middle of the night or guest rooms
could be simply too close to neighboring houses or the next chicken shack. Not
everybody is happy to participate that directly in the 'peaceful'
country life!
©
2008 Axel Bruns
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