Mark, 9 August 2009
2 Things come together here:
1. Preserving Langkawi from being “dubaied”
(built over and the nature destroyed).
2. Managing the cleanliness, recycling and sustainability of resources in Langkawi.
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1. Preserving Langkawi from being “dubai-ed” (built over and the nature destroyed).
Probably the best way to do this, is to create a Trust, that becomes the owner of as much endangered land as possible and can so preserve it from being overbuilt.
As an alternative, the Trust can only buy the ‘Right to veto any buildings on the land it regards as inappropriate with its commitment”. It pays the owners a one-off sum to pay for this right (the loss of value of the land) but the land still belongs to the owners.
2. Managing the cleanliness, recycling and sustainability of resources in Langkawi.
It is heartwarming to see the volunteers cleaning up beaches – from time to time, but this is not the appropriate way to handle the problem. These are only emergency actions to cover up a hole in the present self organization of this Island.
The situation has to be handled professionally, as otherwise, sooner or later, tourist might report about non optimal conditions to ’traveler Forums’ like the “Trip Advisor” – and to then clean up the name of Langkawi again, once it would have been associated with ‘not so clean beaches’ (rightly or wrongly) – would be harder to do than keeping the beaches clean in the first place.
This risk to Langkawi has to be eliminated.
How to get the money, money . . .
In Europe, there is a tax, called “Kur Taxe” which is a Tourist Tax. The local government of a place where there are a lot of tourists, has to maintain the cleanliness of the place, the lighting of the street and boardwalks, put up enough rubbish bins and empty them in short enough intervals, etc. etc. For these additional duties of the government, they have implemented this “Tourist Tax” – which is widely known in Europe and accepted by the tourists. It is a certain small amount every tourist has to pay for every night he stays in a particular place.
It seems evident that something similar should be done here.
Mark
