Tourism ; Big Problems
of the Environment
A. Introduction
Nowadays,
tourism is the largest and the fastest growing industry in the world. It is an increasingly important
source of income, employment and wealth in many countries. International
tourism now accounts for a larger share of foreign exchange receipts and export
earnings than any other industry in the world. Besides that, the growing of
tourism industry also can be seen from the development of
hotel and travel agency industry. Every city has many hotels for tourist. Start
from the small cities with usual hotels until the big cities with high standard
hotels. Based on Indonesian Cushman & Wakefield surveys in
indonesian.cri.cn (2013) until 2015 there will be 4.000 new hotels at Jakarta. Then,
as everyone knows, people needs time to
get some holiday. It can be seen from almost all of tourism places are crowded
by people at every weekend. People need
holiday because of many reasons, for relaxing, refreshing, playing with family,
spending time with friends, etc.
Tourism has a
very complex relationship with environment. Almost all of tourism places have
become famous because of the natural view. For examples, Bunaken national park
at Manado, Raja Ampat at Papua Islands, Lake Maninjau, Iguazu Waterfall at border
of Argentina and Brazil, Great Wall at China, Petra at Jordan, Machu Picchu at
Peru, etc. Raja Ampat become very famous because many natural places that is
very beautiful such as marine life diversity in
the Raja Ampat area as the highest recorded on Earth. Diversity is considerably
greater than any other area sampled in the Coral Triangle composed of
Indonesia, Philippines and Papua New Guinea. While Petra at Jordan become very
popular because the uniqueof
it’s city that carved into the sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an
industrious Arab people who settled here more than 2000 years ago, turning it
into an important junction for the silk, spice and other trade routes that
linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome.
However, because
of the tourism activities there are many
trashes everywhere at tourism places. As the prove, it can be seen along Padang
beach , at Aia Manih beach, at Mediterranean Sea, and at Cancun Mexico. At
Mediterranean Sea, tourism activities increase the excess garbage and sewage
that is dumped directly into the sea and nearby rivers. On the other hand,
because of tourism activities there many natural places that have become worse
since tourism industry is developed further. Just like what have happened at
Bali, tourism definitely in the number of y increased water pollution in the
Bali region. Let’s put aside actual rubbish pollution which in truth can be
seen a lot around the island, and look at the massive increase in the number of
visiting ships. Pollution, which comes from their presence, is very noticeable
in Bali’s clean waters. Coral reefs and other ocean life become stressed and
die in polluted waters. Also the water quality of inland resources has been
degraded.
This paper is
made to make the readers realize that environment is very important and have to
be kept even though people need it very much especially for developing tourism
activities. This paper also has been limited only about the problems that are
caused by tourism activities and also how to resolve those problems.
B. Theoritical Bases
1. Definition of Tourism
Based
on wikipedia.org (2013) “tourism is travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and
staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one
consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes”. While Gamal
Swantoro (2004:3) states that tourism is process of traveling that is done by
someone or people to a place that is different from their daily live. It is
closely related with definition of tour. Almost same with Gamal
Suwanto , Oka A. Yoeti (1994,30) says that tourism is a trip that is done more
than once from one place to another place . In addition based on discoveralex.com
(2013) tourism is “is an activity done by an individual
or a group of individuals, which leads to a motion from a place to another.
From a country to another for performing a specific task, or it is a visit to a
place or several places in the purpose of entertaining which leads to an
awareness of other civilizations and cultures, also increasing the knowledge of
countries, cultures, and history.” Then , Based on merriam-webster.com
tourism is “the
practice of traveling for recreation”.
2.
Definition
of Environtment
Based
on thefreedictionary.com (2013) there two definition of environment are:
1. The circumstances or conditions that
surround one; surroundings.
2. The
totality of circumstances surrounding an organism or group of organisms,
especially:
a. The
combination of external physical conditions that affect and influence the
growth, development, and survival of organisms: "We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it
as a living organism" (Paul
Brooks).
b. The
complex of social and cultural conditions affecting the nature of an individual
or community.
In newagepublishers.com environment is all of things that
influence organism every time. Environment and organism cannot be separated
because their relationship. There will be no organism if there were no
environment. While based on biology-online.org (2013) environment is “The
external surroundings including all of the
biotic and
abiotic factors that surround and affect the
survival and development of an
organism or
population”
and “the totality of the surrounding conditions and elements in an individual”.
Recently, tourism is growing fast everywhere.
At West Sumatra, based on
phinisinews.com
(2012) there are 28.194 people who came to West Sumatra at 2012. It is increase
about 4,79 percent from 2011. However, it has also given bad effects for the
tourism places. Start from one of an exotic tourism place at West Sumatra,
Mentawai Island. Based on harianhaluan.com (2012), Mentawai’s Government will
limit the tourist that want to visit Mentawai Island. The officer of Mentawai
Regency , Yudas Sabaggalet, says that the government do not want Mentawai is
visited by many people freely. They are afraid that the environment will become
worse.
Not only at Mentawai, but also at Bali the
increase of tourist can be seen clearly. In american.edu (2013) there is a
table of tourist’s data that shows the high increase of visitors there since
1972 until 1980. It is increase almost more than a hundred percent each year.
Just like what happened at West Sumatra, the increase of tourist also give bad
effects at Bali. In walhibali.org (2013) Executive Director of WALHI Bali,
Agung Wardhana says that tourism is a big factors of environment flaw at Bali,
especially for water.
C. Discussion
Tourism
is one of the largest and fastest
growing industries in the world. It is an increasingly important
source of income, employment and wealth in many countries. International
tourism now accounts for a larger share of foreign exchange receipts and export
earnings than any other industry in the world. However, it not
only gives the advantages but also many disadvantages and many people do not
realize it. The benefits that are offered by tourism activities make people
forget about the important of environment for their life. Even, they forget
that without environment there will be no more a life. Beside as the largest
and the fastest growing industries in the world, tourism has become a source of
environmental degradation. It has caused
pollution, depletion of natural resources, deforestation and
habitat
loss of flora and fauna.
1.
Tourism has caused pollution
The
high development of tourism industries has caused many bad effects on the
environment. One of the worst effects that can be seen everywhere is pollution.
Based on science.yourdictionary.com (2013) pollution is the dangerous
contamination that changes original contents of water, air, or soil by other
substances. It can be caused by nature phenomenon and by human activities. By
nature phenomenon, pollution occurs through volcanic eruption and by human
activities it occurs because of many activities. Pollution has a very bad effect on any living
organism in an environment, it is really impossible to sustain a life for all
of organisms if there were pollution occurs around them. There are some kind of
pollution that are caused by tourism activities, they are water pollution, air
pollution, and light pollution
a.
Water Pollution
Based on sustainablebabysteps.com,
water pollution is “contamination
of any body of water (lakes, groundwater, oceans, etc)”. the process of water
pollution ranges from simple addition of dissolved or suspended solids to
discharge of the most insidious and persistent toxic pollutants (such as
pesticides, heavy metals, and nondegradable, bioaccumulative, chemical
compounds).Water pollution has caused many tourism places become worse and
looks unnatural. In Trinidad and Tobago overpopulation of tourist has been
depleted for construction, which has damaged beaches. Also, in Mediterranean
region, water
pollution has reached crisis proportions in several of the older tourist
resort. For activities such as swimming, fishing, and many types of boating,
the need of high quality water is essential. The introduction of pollutants
into water bodies is both environmentally degrading and economically disastrous
for water-based tourist resorts.
b. Air
pollution
Air
pollution based on library.thinkquest.org (2013) is “accumulation
in the atmosphere of substances that, in sufficient concentrations, endanger
human health or produce other measured effects on living matter and other
materials”. Wisnu Arya Wardhana (2004) says that air pollution is the strength
substances that cause alteration of air structure in normal situation. Air
pollution will give many impacts in human health. It can cause asthma,
allergies and other respiratory illness. Air pollution is specially caused by
transportation. In balipost.co.id, Ketut Gede Dharma Putra (2013) says that WTO
(1996) guessed more than four million tons gasoline is used each year that
cause eight hundred and fifty million gases. It has damaged ozone layer and it
has produced three point five million tons chemical substances. All of that are
caused by the effort of tourism industry to increase their income.
c. Light
Pollution
Light
pollution is caused by the using of improper lighting of communities and it
will cause the brightening of the night sky inhibiting the visibility of stars
and planets. As one of tourism industries’ effort to increase their income,
today tourism places are not only trade on natural places. In order to interest
tourists to come to a place, the government or an tourism industry will make
that place looks great and beautiful by giving many lamps there. It is a kind
of using improper lighting because sometime the lamps are very useless.
2.
Tourism has caused Habitat Loss of Flora
and Fauna
As
the result of the fastest growing of tourism industry, flora and fauna that are
live on the environment get the bad effect of it. Ni Kadek Mas Ayuni (2009)
says that the development of tourism industry gives the bad effects for habitat
of animals and also damages their origin route.
For
examples, at Bali, there is Serangan Island that has many turtles there. After
the growing of tourism industry there and the investor built a resort which
name is Bali Turtle Island Development, there so many tourists come there.
Tourism activities there have caused habitat lost of turtles, the tourists hunt
them to make their skin as the souvenir. Besides of that, the population of
turtles also descends because of tourism activities. Development of resorts, hotels and housing
area along the beach also threaten the turtles to lay their eggs. It is caused
by the sensitive of turtles on the light, and the noise.
After
that, the noise of tourist at Bali also has caused the changing of animals’
habit. It has caused the aggressiveness of animal’s habit that is very
dangerous. Not only that thing, but also the selling of souvenirs that is made
from the unique of flora and fauna at a tourism place give the bad effects on
the environment. Also in Cancun, Mexico,
tourism has damaged the turquoise lagoon. It also led the extinction of varying
species of animals and fish there. In Hawaii, the development of hotels gives
the bad effect for coral under the sea. The investor move the layer of land
surface to built everything they want and it kills water animals living there.
3.
Tourism has caused Deforestation
Deforestation
is the removal of trees. This is one of bad effect of tourism that can cause
erosion, problem in water circulation, and problem in carbon circulation. At
Bali, to fulfill the necessity of tourists facilities, the owner of hotels,
resorts and other tourism elements take many things from forest. It really
causes deforestation. Deforestation was caused essentially by the over
construction of hotels and other facilities catering to tourism. It leads to
wildlife destruction and further environmental damages, since forests are so
important for the maintenance of the entire habitat. Construction of many
resorts and hotels requires clearing forested land.
4.
Tourism has caused depletion of Natural
Resources
Tourism development can put pressure on natural resources
when it increases consumption in areas where resources are already scarce. Water,
and especially fresh water, is one of the most critical natural resources. The
tourism industry generally overuses water resources for hotels, swimming pools,
golf courses and personal use of water by tourists. This can result in water
shortages and degradation of water supplies, as well as generating a greater
volume of waste water. In dryer regions like the Mediterranean, the issue of
water scarcity is of particular concern. Because of the hot climate and the
tendency of tourists to consume more water when on holiday than they do at
home, the amount used can run up to four hundred and forty liters a day.
Depletion of natural resources also influences local resources and land degradation.
Tourism produces a big tension for local resources such as energy, food, and
other unripe materials. The promotion of tourism activities has caused land
degradation. The use of land for tourism accommodation and infrastructure
requisite will damage natural resources.
So
that, tourism activities are really give dangerous and many bad impacts for
environment. All of public elements that are related with tourism must do
everything to keep the environment. They can establish local and regional zoning
laws that restrict development and band development in conservation of tourism
places. Ecotourism is also one of the best solution for the problem of tourism
on environment. Involving the local people from the planning stages throughout
the entire development of the tourism
project is crucial for the success of ecotourism. In this way, they will benefit from the revenues of tourism, becoming aware
that it benefits them and their environment,
not just the already wealthy and powerful transnational corporations and
people. When tourism is well managed and properly located, should be recognized
as a positive activity which has potential to benefit the host community, the
local environment itself and the visitors. Sustainable tourism requires a balance
to be struck between the needs of the visitors, the place and the host
community. While, Agung Wardhana the executive director of WALHI says that,
government should evaluate the law that has existed before and the investors
also must be responsible on preservation of environment.
D. Conclusion
Tourism
is one of the fastest and the greatest industry in the world now. Tourism is
not as harmful as other industries could be, but it has caused many bad effects
to the environment. Tourism has caused water pollution, air pollution, light
pollution, habitat loss of flora and fauna, deforestation, and depletion of
natural resources. Tourism cannot be forced to develop more and more. The
development of tourism that is wrong will make it buried. In conclusion,
everyone should care about the preservation of environment especially for them
who closely related with tourism world because environment is very valuable for
every human life.
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