Tourism stakeholders have sought steps to curb pollution of the State’s backwaters and the coastline and adoption of sustainable practices to save the sector, in the backdrop of World Environment Day (WED) observed every June 5.
The State budget has given emphasis to promoting environment-friendly tourism. The Responsible Tourism (RT) Mission has readied a host of eco-restoration activities, said Rupesh Kumar, State coordinator of the Mission.
“In this, the emphasis will be on green certification, classification as per RT norms and readying carbon-neutral tour packages. A plan of action is being readied focusing on organic-homestead farming,” he said. Each family unit under the RT Mission has been told to plant a tree sapling and to post it with the day’s hashtag.
Kerala, as a destination, must be made greener, cleaner and healthier. This will reignite the interest of tourists in the State, which in turn will lead to creation of jobs in the sector, said Jose Dominic, former CEO of CGH Earth group of hotels, who is now start-up farm and heritage tourism entrepreneur.
“This year’s WED theme is ‘Ecosystem Restoration’ and one of the important elements of restoration of the ecosystem is to manage bio-waste, especially during the pandemic situation. Kerala’s backwaters are a victim of improper management of bio-waste. All local bodies treat the backwaters as their sewage system, where everything including plastic is dumped. This was revealed by the Arabian Sea depositing back into the Fort Kochi beachfront tonnes of plastic during the recent cyclone. Our objective must be to make the water bodies swimmable again.”
All this is in addition to chemical fertilisers and pesticides from plantations and farms that make their way into water bodies. They together pollute the water table and the food chain, making Kerala the diabetic capital of India. All establishments must strictly adhere to sustainable bio-waste management practices, so that there is zero discharge of untreated waste out of their properties. It is shocking that Kochi, which boasts of a Rs 5000 cr. metro rail, does not have a sewage-treatment system, he said.
Mr. Dominic gave a call to reduce Kerala's dependence on tourism and also remittances from the shaky fossil-fuel economy that it has become indirectly dependent on. “It is time to focus on the farm sector which has the capacity to become the next Gulf Boom, as well as the manufacturing sector, by perhaps adopting the Swiss style - non-polluting, small in size and high value adding.”
