xperts and environmentalists are crying foul over the Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation’s proposal to build a string of five to 10 golf courses of international standards around the city, saying it amounted to promotion of “water guzzling polluting units”.
They contend that the “ill-advised” move has come at a time when developed countries were either phasing out golf courses or restricting their number, with locals dismissing them as “elitist islands of ecological disasters”. TSTDC is scouting for huge land parcels as international standards specify 200 acres for each golf course with 20 holes.
There is no exaggeration in environmental devastation wrought by golf courses. US potential Republican Presidential candidate for 2016, Donald Trump, was forced to withdraw his proposal to have a golf course in the upscale suburb of Mount Kisco, New York, after a seven-year battle by residents who said the project would pollute the town’s only water supply with fertilizers and pesticides.
Tourism Concern, a British organisation that works on reducing social and environmental problems connected to tourism, has estimated that “an average golf course in a tropical country like Thailand needs 1,500 kg of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides per year, and uses much as 60,000 rural villagers do”. It means a clear loss of biodiversity.
And much against the popular perception that golf course is nothing but a vast lush green manicured expanse, a lot of biocides are used to maintain the “greenness”, which contribute to contamination of air and water.
“There is nothing green about a golf course. It consumes a lot of water and chemical fertilizer six times more than what is required by a standard dry crop, which leads to pollution of groundwater and eutrophication of water bodies, leaving no chance for survival of fish. Use of pesticides, herbicides and biocides and exotic species of grass will result in loss of biodiversity,” says T. Hanumantha Rao, former Engineer-in-Chief of Irrigation Department and UN consultant to 22 countries.
“We are simply aping what the West is doing forgetting our own tropical weather conditions and perennial water scarcity”. Capt J. Rama Rao, a veteran environmentalist, too wondered if Hyderabad, which already has four golf courses – including the controversial one at Golconda Fort, required as many as 10 at such a huge environmental cost.
This “golf tourism” with focus on attracting foreign tourists and investors has another flip side. Golfing in hot weather conditions will mean consumption of more water by foreign tourists, and a study in Spain showed that it could run up to 440 litres a day or double of what the inhabitants of an average Spanish city use. Worldwatch Institute, a think tank that monitors global environment trends, estimates that golf courses in the United States gobble up more than 1.7 million acres and soak up nearly four billion gallons of water daily.
Other studies have shown deleterious effect on the staff. Death certificates of 618 golf course superintendents by researchers at the University of Iowa’s College of Medicine showed an unusually high number of deaths from cancers, including brain cancer and non-Hodgin’s lymphoma. Denizens of Hyderabad need to ponder whether they want so many golf courses, and if yes, at what cost.
We are simply aping what the West is doing forgetting our own tropical weather conditions and perennial water scarcity
T. Hanumantha Rao
Former Engineer-in-Chief , Irrigation Department
