Park caught in the flow of garbage

Other problems plaguing Bunaken are the plastic trash that drifts in daily from Manado city and increasing development on the 800- hectare crescent-shaped island, fueled in large part by the tourism trade, particularly in the past five years.

The island is now home to 10 dive operators and numerous cottages for tourists to rent.

KL Tjin, who has lived most of his life in the Netherlands but makes regular diving trips to Bunaken, said he was disturbed at the damage he had noticed since 1997, when he said there were no dive shops or resorts on Bunaken.

"Upon setting foot on Bunaken this time (late December 2003), I thought in dismay that this was not the same place I visited in previous years. We used to be the only tourists, but now there is a big restaurant and dive shops, and plastic trash on the beaches and in the water."

The local and provincial governments set aside two areas for tourism development -- Liang Beach and Pangalisang Beach, which have a number of cottages and dive centers on them -- with the environmental impacts regulated by the Regional Environmental Management Agency (Bapelda), said environmental consultant Mark Erdmann.

"There certainly have been some (environmental impacts) over the past 10 years, including some damage to the reefs by anchoring and clearing channels in the reef," said Erdmann, who is the provincial adviser for the North Sulawesi office of Natural Resources Management (NRM).

Erdmann pointed out that Bunaken's boundaries only extend to the high tide mark on each of the islands within the park; the actual islands, and any dive centers and restaurants built on them, are completely under the authority of local governments.

He also cited trash and sewage problems, but said the majority of the trash washing ashore on Bunaken came from Manado and was much harder to regulate than focusing on any environmental pollution from the cottages.

In response, NRM has sponsored a marine tourism carrying capacity study for the park and the recommendations from the study will be used to help Manado's government develop a regional regulation to regulate the number of dive centers and cottages that are given a license to operate in the park, Erdmann explained.

"We believe that this will help prevent over-development and further environmental impacts."

Dive resort pioneer Loky Herlambang said a proposal had been made in 1983 to the then provincial government that all tourist facilities should be on the mainland and not on any of the five islands, which would be reserved for day-trippers and guided tours.

"But soon after the proposal was made, the governor was replaced and nothing ever became of the initiative," Loky said.

Tjin recalled that he was overwhelmed by the undersea delights Bunaken had to offer the first time he dove in the park in 1994.

"If you dove down a few meters 10 years ago, you could see beautiful corals and many varieties of fish, but now I would say more than 30 percent (of the corals) have disappeared.

"There was a place on Bunaken that if the tide was low, you could see live corals easily and watch the fish feed. I thought Bunaken would be the same and I wanted to go out again (to the island).

"I looked in the same place as 10 years ago, but no underwater life was visible. This is no longer a paradise," Tjin said.

-- Maria Lisa K.