One of the snowballing trends in the ecotourism industry is the establishment of eco parks within private and public properties that now serve as major tourist destinations among nature lovers because of the unique way of preserving the biodiversity and allowing the harmonious co-existence between regulated development and preserving nature. Through the years, numerous eco parks had already thrived in the different parts of the country, especially the Cordillera, which are now actually major tourist destinations because of their unique beauty and the attraction they provide the foreign and domestic visitors.
Many people have decided to convert their idle properties into thriving ecotourism destinations using varied designs that now serve as major tourist attractions in their respective places. These property owners invested in the regulated development of their properties without sacrificing the state of the environment so that they can provide people with alternative attractions while ensuring the sustainable preservation and protection of the environment and avoiding collateral damages in support of the government’s thrust of advancing the tourism industry and ensuring the preservation of nature.
However, some eco park owners aired their sentiments against concerned government agencies that are in charge of the implementation of programs, projects and activities for the preservation and protection of the environment. According to them, it seems that the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that are supposed to be their partners in the establishment of eco parks to lessen damages to the environment are actually making it hard for them to operate which is contrary to the efforts of the government to preserve and protect the environment. Instead of supporting the said initiatives that enhance the very measures taken to nurture nature, it seems that these concerned agencies are now becoming hindrance to the development of eco parks.
What is ironical in the said case is that protected areas are being ravaged by illegal loggers and owners of commercial vegetable farms purposely to expand existing plantations that result to rapid forest denudation which now open the floodgates for soil erosion and landslides that pose a serious threat to life and limb. Now, people are using heavy equipment to be able to flatten portions of the mountain slopes and cut the century-old trees to allow the development of the said areas into commercial vegetable farms to provide sustainable livelihood to their families while risking their communities to the occurrence of soil erosions and landslides during the onslaught of heavy rains in the coming months.
Our mountainous region had its own share of tragic landslide incidents that claimed thousands of innocent lives and inflicted damage to millions worth of properties and that the same should already serve as a sufficient experience for us to learn our lessons of not willfully damaging nature so that it will not take its toll against us in the future. But it seems that people never learned from such tragic experiences because the extent of damages that are inflicted to our environment seems to worsen aside from threats of pollution caused by improper solid waste management and air pollution as a result of motor vehicle emissions
We believe that the PAMB and DENR should fairly treat owners and developers of eco park as their partners in the effort to preserve and protect our rapidly deteriorating environment. Instead of making it difficult for them to put up and operate the park, the agencies should actually be grateful to them because of their presence and vocation to do so for their love of the environment so that people will be encouraged to develop similar parks to contribute to environmental conservation which these agencies cannot do.
The DENR and PAMB should also allow eco park owners to take care of wildlife in their established nature destinations so that they will serve as guardians of the environment within their properties. There is nothing wrong for people to take care of wildlife within their midst provided that they adhere to the prescribed standards set by these agencies themselves but for the DENR and PAMB to take that right away from responsible individuals is longer part of sound wildlife management. It is unfortunate that in one instance, a pair of monkeys were taken from an eco-park owner by DENR personnel without any proper documentation and the caregiver of these wild creatures is no longer updated on what happened to these.
Let us consider concerned stakeholders as our partners in the overall efforts to preserve and protect our environment. Let us be fair and reasonable in the implementation of envi8ronmental laws, rules and regulations. Let us go after those who continue to activities that are detrimental to the state of our environment while we embrace those who are doing what is right and appropriate for us to be able to pass on a good state of environment to the upcoming generations.