Costing the Earth
BBC Radio 4
Eco-Island
Mass tourism is, we’re lead to believe, one of the great evils we visit upon our planet. From the pollution-belching aircraft we fly in to the untreated sewage and litter we leave behind tourists can quickly turn some of the world’s most beautiful places into deeply grim experiences for visitors and locals.
So what happens when we
try and change things? What happens when Europe’s biggest holiday resort
decides to transform itself from being the spiritual home of lager and sunstroke
into a mecca for hikers, birdwatchers and the discretely rich? Mallorca is embarking
on a great experiment. In 2002 it became the first large resort to introduce
an eco-tax. Each visitor would contribute one Euro per night into a fund that
would transform the island.
The ugliest beach-front hotels would be knocked down to be replaced by a mix
of tasteful low-rise designer hotels and traditional gardens. Rare wildlife
would be properly protected for the first time, heritage centres would be opened,
cycle paths built and cars discouraged from the busiest areas.
In this week’s Costing the Earth Miriam O’Reilly visits Mallorca to investigate whether the eco-tax is living up to its promises. Is the money really helping the wildlife or is it just being used to update the tired tourist facilities of the ‘60s and ‘70s? Is the local government tackling the fundamental environmental issues of development, water-use and waste disposal? And what happens if the eco-tax has the effect predicted by angry hoteliers and travel companies- what if those much-maligned beer-bellied, sun-bed hogging hordes really do stay away. How can an island utterly dependent on mass tourism survive without them?