GUYANA will be hosting the Sustainable Tourism Conference this month from the 15th to 18th and this, no doubt, is a recognition of this country emerging as a growing tourist destination and the immense potential it possesses to eventually have a huge tourism sector.
It is widely acknowledged that while we do not have the traditional blue water and sandy beaches, we do have the unique form of tourist attraction of eco-tourism, which is rapidly emerging to be a large player in the tourism industry. In this regard, we have few countries in this hemisphere that can really compete with us and therefore we need to optimise our efforts in ensuring this enormous potential is utilised to fully develop and expand our tourism industry, which has been showing great promise in recent years.
However, one of our major and long-standing obstacles in realising our tourism potential has been and still is the poor and unhealthy state of our environment, particularly our capital city, which once was heralded as the ‘Garden City’, but today is more recognised as the ‘Garbage City’. This most unfortunate development is mainly due to the mismanagement of the city by those entrusted with its administration.
From all indications, these persons who have been entrusted with the management and administration, lack vision, commitment and ability to fashion a long-term and comprehensive plan to deal with the problems and challenges facing our capital city.
Against this background, it is encouraging to see that the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, in collaboration with the Ministries of Local Government and Regional Development and Public Works, as well as private sector organisations and City Hall will be conducting a clean-up campaign to restore the image of Georgetown, as preparations continue for the upcoming Sustainable Tourism Conference (STC).
To facilitate this exercise, the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) has drafted a maintainable enhancement programme for the capital, placing major emphasis on areas along the ‘City Trail’, which will include “common, important, historical places and streets” frequented by tourists.
Acting Tourism Minister, Mr. Irfaan Ali, said the collaborative venture is an effort to ensure the city remains a tourist hub. That was agreed during a meeting, on Monday, at the Tourism Ministry, involving the minister within the Local Government and Regional Development Ministry, Mr. Norman Whittaker; Public Works Minister, Mr. Robeson Benn as well as representatives of private sector organisations.
While this is an excellent measure aimed at ensuring our city is in a presentable condition for the STC, it is imperative that we look for a long-term, sustainable and comprehensive strategy and plan to ensure that our environment is always in the desired state, rather than only when we host a major event.
In this regard, we need to employ both short-term and long-term methods. In the short term, we need to unflinchingly enforce littering laws, provide adequate facilities for the disposing of garbage and we need to implement a methodical and scientific system of collection and disposing of garbage.
In the longer term, we need to change people’s attitudes towards the environment and this is the bigger problem, because when people have become accustomed to denigrating their environment with impunity, then it becomes extremely difficult to change those unwanted habits. The old adages teach us: ‘Old habits die hard’ and ‘You can take the pig out of the sty, but you cannot take the sty out of the pig’.
So in the long term, through consistent and persistent educational and awareness programmes through the school system, home and social organisations, we need to develop and inculcate a correct and positive attitude in our people with respect to the environment. By any standard it would be difficult but not impossible. Lee Kwan Yew did it in Singapore and so we can too, with the will and commitment to succeed.