What would ecotourism look like in a post-pandemic world?

It has been a year since the Covid-19 outbreak put the Philippines under quarantine. And while some sectors have been able to make the necessary pivots demanded by the resulting restrictions, many more remain grappling with the economic fallout caused by the national government’s continuous lack of strategic planning and proper policy implementation to safeguard public health and safety against the novel coronavirus.

One of the more recent examples of this is Resolution No. 101 set in February by the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) that outlines more relaxed protocols for local travel, such as the removal of these requirements: police-issued travel authority documents, medical certificates issued by the local government unit (LGU) of the traveler’s origin, and mandatory quarantine for asymptomatic travelers. The resolution also leaves it to the discretion of LGUs to require new arrivals to undergo reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing to check for possible infection.  

LGUs have long been taking it upon themselves to impose measures that can help curb transmission rates among their constituents. But with summer fast approaching and people lulled by the impending but slow vaccine rollout and the earlier plateauing of Covid-19 cases in the country—not to mention tired with the psychological burden of anxiety, uncertainty, boredom, and despair brought by isolation—the complacency that has convinced policymakers to ease travel restrictions could hasten further the recent alarming resurgence in infection rates. And once again, local communities find themselves having to make the difficult call between reopening businesses to reinvigorate the local economy and enforcing boundaries to prevent the spread of the virus.

Still, local leaders find their hands tied. The Department of Interior and Local Government has already promised to verify reports of some provinces refusing entrance to tourists. A group of governors has resorted to asking the national government to revise its resolution regarding local travel since its more relaxed measures leave provinces “defenseless” and “very vulnerable” to infection.  

With tourism the main source of income for several provinces in the country, businesses in this sector find themselves between a rock and a hard place. After missing out on the travel peak that usually happens during the end of the year, the possibility of missing out on yet another peak season could be the last straw for the remaining few that have remained open or operational to some capacity. But with the threat of infection present in every tourist arrival, a fresh outbreak will also mean the further extension of whatever purgatory they are occupying: one that hovers somewhere between the unprofitable isolation of a lockdown and the tentative, half-open state that still uses up precious limited resources without guaranteeing their replenishment.

Distanced tourism, then and now

Danjugan Island is a curious case, though, as the place has long been practicing its own version of social distancing even before the onset of the pandemic.  

A 43-hectare marine reserve and wildlife sanctuary located three kilometers off the shores of Barangay Bulata in Cauayan, Negros Occidental, the island is managed by the Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation, Inc. (PRRCFI), which has long emphasized to interested tourists that the island is not, in fact, a resort. People looking to visit and experience the place need to go through an application process with the organization first, and that disclaimer is actually the first statement that they will read on the guest primer.

Instead, what Danjugan presents is a low-impact, low-volume, yet high-value tourism model that allows guests to connect more deeply with nature but not at the expense of the local community and wildlife. Only a limited number of visitors are allowed at a time on the island, and rules are firmly maintained regarding waste disposal and the consumption of resources, as there is limited electricity on the island and zero freshwater sources.

An aerial view of Danjugan Island

Still, even with its limited reliance on tourism for funding, PRRCFI found the Covid-19-triggered lockdown jarring. “We learned the hard way that, like many in the tourism and conservation fields who rely solely on green jobs, we also needed to pivot; we had to redesign,” Dave Albao, the organization’s executive director, admits.

As a non-profit organization, PRRCFI constantly needs to raise funds. But instead of asking for donations, it offers either tourism or education experiences to donors in exchange for financial support. With travel restrictions in place, “we saw that we needed to engage with them in different ways,” says Albao. What they came up with are virtual educational tour sessions that allowed patrons to experience the outdoors through Zoom. “It has been an adjustment, but thankfully, we’ve been able to support our core force through the pandemic through these projects.”

With experiential learning as one of the pillars of PRRCFI’s work, he believes that the virtual models will remain a standard for the island’s events going forward, especially with the old calendar of hosting around four marine and wildlife camps on Danjugan every summer indefinitely on hold.

Albao sees the maintenance of the organization’s learning program as essential in the financial upkeep of the island, especially with everybody economically affected by the pandemic. He credits the continued support that Danjugan has received from long-standing donors (albeit at a more modest pace) through a year of lockdown to the decades of groundwork—the information campaigns, the education camps—that PRRCFI has done. “I’d like to think we’ve been able to help them internalize that conserving these hotspots for wildlife is crucial—that in the bigger picture, areas such as Danjugan support life.

The island’s marine and wildlife camps educate students on the work that goes into environment conservation. Photography by Charley Sta. Maria.

“Our patrons aren’t just tourists,” he continues. “I’m not going to say that 100% of the tourists we’ve had on the island were changed by the experience, but many people from different places around the world reached out to us last year to ask how they could help support our work because they truly understand what we are doing. To them, Danjugan is a special place where they learned how we all collectively depend on nature, how we can connect with nature, because it’s a place that allows for that kind of learning and realization.”

Conservation is essential work

Though there has certainly been more general awareness about environmental issues within the past decade, the language used to promote it remains largely focused on the position of humans in the issue: Primarily, that nature can be saved only by humans, for the sake mostly of the future generations of humans.

Albao says that PRRCFI and even major organizations such as Conservation International have been working on shifting the narrative from the traditional “Save the earth” messaging. It’s an altruistic take, undoubtedly, but it also romanticizes and glamorizes the humans’ position in the so-called circle of life. And as a long-time environmentalist, Albao understands that conservation isn’t a romantic cause to support. “It’s an essential service,” he stresses. More importantly, it’s work that is essential to the survival of human civilization. “We need more campaigns to teach us how nature doesn’t really need people, only the other way around.”

While a non-anthropocentric approach could be the equivalent of using vinegar rather than honey to attract attention and raise awareness about conservation work, the executive director believes it actually resonates with indigenous beliefs and practices concerning nature. “Our cultural heritage has that sense of respect, that recognition that while we may be the highest life forms on the planet, everything else on it isn’t at our disposal.”

Danjugan Island’s shallow reef

Indeed, old superstitious practices such as saying “Tabi-tabi po” while walking through an unfamiliar environment, as quaint as they are now, point to a reverence for what may be unseen but is undoubtedly present. “In South Negros, some places are called ‘mariit,’ which sort of means ‘enchanted,’ and people know that one simply doesn’t go there and take something that’s not theirs from nature. Of course, a function of superstition is to enforce obedience, but it also teaches a sense of humility and respect, especially regarding relating to nature.”

Of course, these practices aren’t observed anymore by non-local businesses that see only the monetary value of natural resources and aren’t hesitant to capitalize on them. And in a world of late-stage capitalism, where automation has replaced much of manual labor and the diminishing financial returns of essential yet labor-intensive industries that are closely tied to the environment, such as farming and fishing, continue to push rural folks to look for other means of employment, protecting these resources is becoming harder—not mention deadly—work.

Says Albao, “Protecting marine protected areas, forests, coral reefs—it’s essential work, and the people that do it are environmental front liners.”

Much like the lives of healthcare workers are in peril due to the constant threat of exposure to the novel coronavirus, environmental conservationists have been risking their lives protecting natural resources from capitalist vultures. In fact, the Philippines was named the world’s deadliest country for land and environment defenders in 2019 by the independent watchdog Global Witness, with 30 people killed that year. The country also has the dubious distinction of having the highest recorded number of environment defense-related murders in an Asian country: 48 people in 2017.  

That environment conservation is essential work should already be an obvious fact on any given day, yet most people are reminded of it only after the event of a natural calamity. In Negros, for example, Albao says there has been a resurgence in the discussion among local communities regarding the protection of a local national park in the wake of recent widespread floods that had affected several municipalities. Prevention measures are inherently designed based on the most recent disaster, but the urgency with which they are implemented also frequently comes too late.

The importance of local input and support

Of course, conservationists don’t have all the answers. In fact, a big hurdle in fighting the general inertia regarding environmental conservation—a mix of a lack of awareness, complacency, indifference, despair, and analysis paralysis—is the traditional approach and practices applied by conservationists themselves.

Since they are frequently foreigners and outsiders, conservationists often fall into the trap of believing that they know what’s best for a local community. It’s a mistake that has historically been seen in the work involving social justice and human rights, especially in developing countries: Measures and policies that were developed somewhere else are applied to communities without much regard for local cultural norms and social structure, and the locals’ inevitable resistance to intervention is characterized as hardheadedness and laziness. 

After nearly 30 years of working on Danjugan Island, PRRCFI is mindful of undoing and unlearning traditional practices that can undermine the work it has done. From the beginning, it has partnered with the provincial government of Negros Occidental, and it has built relationships with local schools for its education camps and with other government and non-government organizations that have long been working in the area.

A giant clam photographed by Gerry Ledesma

This approach has been crucial because between the 1980s and the mid-1990s, people who had lost their livelihoods after the closure of Negros’ sugar plantations and mining facilities turned to fishing—including dynamite fishing. In reversing the damage done to Danjugan Island’s once-pristine reefs and marine life, PRRCFI knew it needed not just the locals’ support but also a general behavioral change among the community.

“There are always going to be challenges [whenever an area is declared as protected],” Albao explains. “Enforcing their protection always means having a resource-use conflict, since you cordon off a certain place or body of water.”

To mitigate this, the foundation provided gainful employment to locals from Bulata, hiring them as staff members on the island. It also established a supply chain for Danjugan Island’s tourism and hospitality infrastructure, products, and services that consisted of local suppliers and businesses. “This helped the people understand that conservation work can be a source of livelihood.”

Educating younger generations about it is an even longer-term safeguard. Danjugan Island has hosted thousands of students from local public schools through the years with PRRCFI’s annual marine and wildlife camps, where they are also taught skills such as snorkeling and diving, “especially since the kids live on the coast,” says Albao. The foundation also provides scholarship grants with the help of government agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, and it has seen “more than a hundred” of its grantees graduate. “Four of them work with us right now while others work with the LGU’s fisheries or agriculture office,” the executive director adds. “We hope that we’re helping to foster a generation of sustainability-minded young people and professionals.”

An octopus in Danjugan Island’s waters photographed by Kaila Ledesma

A third component in the foundation’s approach is working with the local community’s spirituality, which Albao says can be quite tricky, given the diverse spiritual beliefs even within PRRCFI. “There’s a thing called environmental evangelization where spiritual leaders talk about conservation work in their homilies and connect it to the bible or any holy scripture. I personally cannot say that for the work we do in Danjugan Island, we’re doing [this aspect] right,” he admits. It is an important aspect, however, that cannot be underestimated.

Despite the different existing belief systems, Albao knows that respecting local culture, especially indigenous culture and spirituality, would always be a good guide for any foundation looking to do significant work in any community. “Conservation is also about cultural heritage,” he says. “We don’t put in our materials that Danjugan Island is a pretty spiritual place, but I believe that it is; it has a spiritual meaning. Without that aspect in our relationship with nature, I don’t think pure science and pure altruism are going to be enough.”

Calling back to the local practice of respecting areas that are “mariit,” Albao thinks that these superstitious beliefs are relevant to the discussion about the environment as a resource. “The reefs, the fish, whatever we get from nature—these are natural resources. We always seem to think that they’re there for our consumption and use, which is a pragmatic approach—and it’s something we do use. But the other approach is acknowledging that while they support life for us, we don’t own these resources. We are at the mercy of nature.”

This point of view is woven into the briefing that local guides give to visitors as part of PRRCFI’s effort to rethink the old messaging in conservation. “It also helps develop a respectful approach to nature among visitors that’s spiritual, cultural, even philosophical. It highlights how we’re all linked together.”

Kayaking in one of the island’s lagoons

Ecotourism in the “new normal”

Despite having had a long practice in social distancing pre-Covid-19, PRRCFI knows it still has to implement some changes in its management of Danjugan Island to cope with the new normal in tourism. Especially with the recent spike of infection rates, “LGUs’ Covid-19 regulations can change at the snap of the fingers [once again], so it’s more important than ever to have meaningful dialogue with local officials and other stakeholders,” says Albao.

A closer look at existing systems is also needed, from a location’s solid waste management to putting a cap on the number of guests, which would helpfully slow down the pre-pandemic unsustainable mass tourism.

“We see the emergence of the kind of tourism that we have already been advocating for: low impact and low volume, even when the vaccine comes around,” says Albao. “You can’t sell products and services like hotcakes anymore. Tourism should be well-curated, well-planned, and well-implemented, with proper protocols and guidelines. It can’t be a Wild West of capitalism-driven tourism anymore.”

PRRCFI plans to reopen Danjugan Island as a mindful travel destination, possibly with yoga and nature retreats added on top of the educational camps. Aside from putting together more “intentional” activities for guests, the foundation would also enforce stricter travel protocols, such as having guests who are flying in to Bacolod go straight to the island to minimize the possibility of viral transmission.

A visitor on the island doing some seaside yoga.

With Danjugan Island envisioned to be a travel bubble location, the foundation is also working on its Wala Usik initiative, which aims to make local economies more circular rather than linear.

As described by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, in a circular economy, materials for new products come from old products. “As much as possible, everything is reused, re-manufactured, or, as a last resort, recycled back into a raw material or used as a source of energy,” UNIDO states on its website. Thus, instead of a linear supply chain that uses up finite natural resources and accumulates waste, a circular economy creates a closed loop.   

“We envision a zero-kilometer food supply chain that reduces carbon emissions and supports local suppliers that are micro, small, and medium-sized entrepreneurs,” says Albao. “That would help strengthen the local community and help people be more mindful about our resources, everything that we use, and how we’re using them.”

Balancing development with sustainability has been a real, long-standing dilemma for PRRCFI—and it is a tough act that tourism businesses need to deal with in the post-Covid-19 world. It took a pandemic for the industry to see how unsustainable its old practices are, but Albao is hopeful that tourist destinations—whether they are declared sanctuaries or not—are taking the pause that Covid-19 has caused to find the right way going forward. “Even the best-protected areas and natural parks, even those that have good tourism programs, face the challenge of development versus sustainability. But there is a way to settle that.”

All images are courtesy of the Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation, Inc. Learn more about the work it is doing in Danjugan Island and in other parts of the country on its website.