 Environmental conservation of natural wonders in and around Phuket should be a priority if we want to keep them longer. Tourism has given Phuket and South Thailand a huge source of revenue for the last 20 years and everyone in Phuket has benefited from it. The area’s infrastructure and public facilities such as roads and hospitals have improved a lot, thanks to visitors from abroad.
But every coin has two faces and development also has a downside. The growing amount of visitors causes greater amounts of rubbish, a large proportion of which ends up in the sea and this is why today you will find water-born human refuse such as bottles, flip-flops, plastic bags and the like on the beaches of many perfectly remote islands.
Therefore it is just a question of common sense that something should be done to clean up the beaches and islands most visited by tourists: dirty beaches are definitely not appealing. A simple way of improving the situation is to ask people directly involved in tours (boat, kayak, speedboat) to handle the cleaning. If each boat that visits Maya Bay filled up a large garbage bag, the beach would certainly look better than that shown in the photos below.
I am sure that along with boat crews, some tourists would be happy to participate in this casual and friendly clean up and it would not take more than 30 minutes for each boat. I reckon that the Thai government, tour companies and the tourism business should realize that allowing the deterioration of these natural environments is a short-term view and will bear negative results.
Stephan Audiger |
