Saint Martin threatened by unrestricted tourism

The only coral island of the country, Saint Martin is faced with at least 20 different types of dangers. These risk factors have been created in the last two decades. The soil, water and air are turning toxic on this island that is almost 3,500 years old.

Because of these dangers created from uncontrolled tourism, the temperature on this island is remaining at least 3 degrees Celsius higher than that in other parts of the country.

These findings came up in a research that was published in a scientific journal named ‘Environmental Advance’ on 15 April.

The study stated that a lot of dangers including high temperatures, increase in salinity, deforestation, pollution, rise in the sea level, destruction of turtle’s abode, use of plastic, crisis of fresh water, sea erosion from tidal waves have arisen from the tourism.

Though the local population on the island is 10,000 several hundred thousand people stay there all round the year.

For the last two months, a new trouble has appeared on the island. There’s has been an infestation of highly harmful white flies there. These flies are destroying the forests on the island. Historically, there were more than a hundred species of trees.

All of them except for the coconut and kewra trees have come to the verge of extinction in the last one decade. Around 300 coconut trees have died because of the white flies in the past few months.

When asked, emeritus professor at BRAC University Ainun Nishat told Prothom Alo that different countries adopt different initiatives to protect a unique island with this sort of biodiversity. For it takes thousands of years for an island like this to be formed.

However, the abuse from some tourists for a few decades can destroy that within just a couple of years. So, the government should put maximum priority for the protection of Saint Martin’s island.

Experts blame unplanned tourism for the current condition of Saint Martin. They say the crisis is growing even thicker because of the irresponsible behavior and environment-destroying entertainment of the seasonal tourists.

The government had taken initiatives of controlling tourism to protect the island three times in the last one decade. The department of environment had also implemented a project to protect the island. However, the government stepped back from that position coming under pressure from the tourism businessmen.

The department of environment declared Saint Martin an Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) back in 1999 to protect the biodiversity. Lastly on 4 January 2023, according to the wildlife (conservation and security) act the environment ministry declared 1,743 square kilometres of area in the Bay of Bengal adjoining the Saint Martin’s island as reserved area.

Last of all, an initiative to control tourists on the Saint Martin’s island was taken in August 2020 to save the biodiversity there. On behalf of the government, research organisation Centre for Environmental and Geographical Information Services (CEGIS) was given the responsibility of conducting a survey.

After the study, the organisation stated that it is not ideal in any way to allow tourists to stay on the island at night. And, it would not be right to allow more than 1,250 tourists a day on the island during the tourism season in winter.

In this regard executive director of CEGIS Fida Abdullah told Prothom Alo, “It has been repeatedly proved in ours and other studies that there’s no alternative to controlling tourism to save the island. It won’t do if the government backs down coming under pressure from the tourism companies or from other reasons.”

A research paper on Saint Martin’s Island published in international journal ‘Ocean Science’ in September 2020 stated that the island can become completely stripped of coral by 2045.

The island is home to different types of wildlife including the near-extinct olive turtle, four species of dolphins and endangered species of birds.

Keeping this in mind, the department of environment issued a public notice on 2 January 2021. The notice imposed 14 restrictions including prohibition on holding barbecue dinners with bright lights on, shops, collecting stones, and riding any types of vehicles including motorbikes on the beach of Saint Martin’s island. However, the public notice was not implemented or monitored later.

Lastly in 2023, the ministry of environment, forest and climate change formulated a policy on 13 questions for the protection of biodiversity including restricting tourists on Saint Martin’s island and limiting the movement of tourist vessels on Teknaf-Saint Martin marine route.

The policy formulation committee had their last meeting titled ‘Protection of environment, ecology and biodiversity of Saint Martin’s Island and Sustainable Tourism Policy 2022’ at the then prime minister’s office on 23 June of the same year.

It was decided in the meeting that maximum 900 tourists will be permitted to visit the island a day through registration. Interested people would have to pay the government a tax of Tk 1,000 per person.

And, to stay the night at a hotel on the island they would have to pay Tk 2,000. Though the policy was supposed to be implemented in the next tourism season meaning this November, no one is able to visit Saint Martin now.

After the interim government took charge, there arose an opposite campaign regarding the matter of taking an initiative to restrict tourism on Saint Martin’s island. Various campaigns including the establishment of a US military base there kept going around.

Last of all, it has been decided to limit tourist movement and stay on Saint Martin’s island for the next four months during a meeting of the advisers in the interim government last week. With this decision, tourists will be able to visit the island during day in November but won’t be able to stay the night.

Meanwhile in December and January, they would be able to stay the night there but, not more than 2,000 tourists a day would be allowed on the island then. Then in February, tourists would be barred from visiting the island altogether.

An organisation named ‘Alliance for development of environment and tourism on Saint Martin’s island in Cox’s Bazar’ has come forward in protest of that decision from the government.

Many leaders of the organisation have hotels on Saint Martin’s island. There are allegations that these hotels have been established illegally in the ecologically critical area.

Adviser for the environment, forest and climate change ministry Syeda Rizwana Hasan told Prothom Alo, “We want to save the island. It’s an asset to everyone in the country. If the tourists behave responsibly, this asset of the country would be saved.”