Back in the 1997 there was a period of time when you couldn’t turn on the television without seeing the ubiquitous infomercial for Pure Moods, the chilled out compilation of new age, soft focus jams. At the time I was in the midst of my Ministry and Nine Inch Nails informed “metal phase,” and chuckled to no end at what poor, bubble bath taking, lavender-scented-candle-lighting dopes would actually dish out for such slushy crap. It was to my amazement later in college to discover that not only had the CD sold well, it was hiding out in the CD collections of people I knew, usually defended by the suspicious phrase “that’s my study music, man.”
Glasser is currently in the midst of a tour with similarly smooth-jam-minded supergroup Gayngs.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF TOURISM.(MAIN) in our site big island hawaii
Albany Times Union (Albany, NY) March 30, 2001 Byline: ELLEN GOODMAN THE BIG ISLAND, Hawaii — In some ways, Hawaii has always been a bit ambivalent toward tourists. When Captain Cook arrived here in 1778 he was considered a god. Just a year later — after he had, well, overtaxed his welcome — he ended up murdered.
For the most part, however, latter-day tourists have bathed in the Aloha spirit. Their cash flow is as much a part of the landscape as the lava flow.
Only today there are a few second thoughts about what is called “the visitor industry.” On Oahu, the famed Waikiki Beach is mourned as a honky-tonk strip. On Maui, visitors lured by the surf complain about being stuck in traffic. And even here on the Big Island, where coffee growing and cattle ranching coexist with golf courses and luxury hotels, there is talk of the fragility of a state whose ecology is also its economy.
In the ocean on this day, humpback whales surface and sea turtles float close to shore. But along this developed Kohala Coast, a duly labeled “nature trail” leads from one luxury hotel to another past a trophy house under construction. And in nearby Kona, the historic first church of Hawaii is flanked by a pizzeria on one side and a tattoo parlor on the other.
The idea that tourists in search of snorkeling and sunsets have an environmental impact has begun to take a tenuous toehold on the island consciousness.
Any day now, in a seminal case, the Hawaiian Supreme Court may decide whether state money spent to promote tourism requires an environmental impact statement. In short, should tourism be guided by the same rules as, say, highway construction or housing development?
This case began a couple of years ago when David Frankel of the Sierra Club heard that Hawaii was going to funnel $114 million into a marketing plan to increase tourism by 14 percent — or about a million people a year. Frankel and Isaac Hall, a lawyer, had the same thought at the same time:
“Shouldn’t we know the impact on the water, the beaches, the trails?” remembers Frankel. “Let’s stop a minute and think about what we’re doing.” A state law required an environmental impact study before the government spent money on any “program or project.” But no one had ever thought of applying that law to tourism. Until, that is, the Sierra Club filed its suit.
“It was as if we attacked motherhood and apple pie,” says Frankel, a wiry 37-year-old lawyer and father dressed in the Big Island uniform of flip-flops, print shorts and T-shirt. “It was shocking how quickly our friends ran away.” The suit was attacked as “loony” by the state head of tourism. Others insisted that it would tie the government’s hands. go to site big island hawaii
Yet, gradually in the months before and since the October court hearing, there’s been more support for a requirement to look at the effect of visitors on development, on fragile natural resources and on that intangible asset: the wilderness experience. What’s the “carrying capacity” of an island?
The Sierra Club didn’t start out to set a nationwide precedent or to define tourism as pollution. But it’s not exactly news that development can kill the golden goose, or to keep the image Hawaiian, the golden plover.
Indeed others have begun to wonder just how “clean” the tourism industry is. The attraction of a “wilderness experience” has turned Yellowstone into an RV parking lot. In the Galapagos a tanker carrying fuel for tour boats created a massive oil spill. And even Mount Everest has produced a tourist garbage heap.
Just last month a circuit court halted an increase in cruise ships into Alaska’s Glacier Bay, fearing the effect of tourists on the very creatures and the waters they were touring.
“We’re not saying the visitor industry is evil,” says Frankel, who was born in Honolulu. Indeed in many places, tourism has been the salvation of rain forests and tourists have become defenders of everything from sea turtles to tigers.
But the strategy is one way to deal with the growing realization that tourists can love a place to death.
“You can’t quantify the wilderness experience,” says Frankel as we stand near the surf that has made these islands famous. Nevertheless, if tourism is an industry, he describes Hawaii as a “product” to protect as well as promote.
Today, he adds, “Millions of dollars are going to sell a couple strolling on an isolated beach at sunset. What happens when people sold on that image don’t find it?”
