Reducing plastics, transforming sargassum, encouraging community-based tourism, and organizing destination management are some of the challenges that the Dominican Republic must overcome to make its industry environmentally friendly and resilient in the face of climate change.
These challenges were addressed yesterday during the International Forum on Sustainable Tourism in the Dominican Republic.
The event, which took place on the eve of the 18th Executive Council of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) -to be held today in Punta Cana-, considered the steps that the sector must take to develop a public-private strategy that responds to these pending tasks.
Under this focus of action, Tourism Minister David Collado and UNWTO Secretary Zurab Pololikashvili yesterday signed a declaration of intent with the aim of reaching, within the next 90 days, a resolution that will dictate short, medium, and long-term measures.
“We are fully determined that the Dominican Republic is going to take the step towards sustainable and environmentally friendly tourism,” Collado remarked during the event.
Plastic reduction
One of the first measures to be contemplated in the resolution is to propose a plan to gradually eliminate plastic throughout the value chain of the hotel sector.
In this regard, the UNWTO secretary said that the Dominican Republic would be one of the first countries to take this initiative in the tourism sector.
He considered that this action would be a demonstration of “tangible results” in the face of the Sustainable Development Goals, an initiative that is expected to be joined by the entire Caribbean.
In this regard, during the panel “Present and future challenges and benefits of sustainable development”, the Sustainability Manager of the Iberostar Group, Luz Lantigua, explained the case of this hotel chain, which in 2020 managed to eradicate the use of single-use plastics, and replace them with reusable materials, as a sample that can be a replicable method for other centers and, in addition, promotes environmental awareness among tourists.
Solution to sargassum
The overproduction of sargassum during the summer is currently one of the main environmental problems that directly impact the economic model of the tourism sector.
However, there are alternatives to convert the seaweed into raw material to generate biodegradable disposables.
“Sargassum can be transformed into compounds to produce bioplastics,” said Elena Martinez, director of Research and Development for the company SOS Carbon.
Through the panel “Environmental Sustainability”, the executive explained the importance of research to generate innovations, such as the use of this seaweed in other industries, for example, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
Similarly, the Dominican Republic has pioneering initiatives in technologies that allow the transformation of sargassum to extract benefits.
There is one presented by Brenden Godfrey, a student at Carol Morgan High School. During his intervention in the “Environmental Sustainability” panel, the young man spoke about the creation of the first reactor to convert sargassum into plastic, a milestone that led him to win the International Robotics Award in Grenada.
However, all initiatives depend on greater public investment in order to materialize, remarked Puntacana Group vice-president Jake Kheel.
During a dissertation on the future of Dominican tourism, the businessman considered that sargasso, more than an issue, should be seen as “a crisis” for the tourism sector, comparable to that of COVID-19.
Source: Diario Libre
Source:
