Animal tourism in the Philippines. Interview for Radio Afera
In April, Filip took part in the Days of Tourism, organised by the Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where he had the pleasure of sharing his experiences with the audience during a lecture entitled ‘Two sides of the coin of animal tourism in the Philippines’. Incidentally, he was also invited to the Student Patrol programme on Radio Afera, where he had the opportunity to talk to Szymon Majchrzak. The topic was, of course, animal tourism.
You can listen to the interview by clicking on the file below (in polish), but we also have a transcript of the interview for you. Enjoy!
Animal tourism – radio interview
Host: Hello, in our studio Filip Wojciechowski, a member of the Kahibalo Foundation. We’re going to talk about animal tourism in the Philippines and biodiversity, because that’s what your Foundation does in different parts of the world. Maybe let’s start by looking at Asia and its south-eastern part, more precisely – the Philippines. It is an islandic country, very divided in terms of religion, politics, ethnicity and nature. We have pristine areas, extremely rich, and on the other side of the extreme, those that are extremely exploited by man. Please tell us more about this country.
Filip: Definitely a country with a difficult history. Colonisation there lasted several hundred years. And we can still really see the effects of that today. First Spanish, then American. Well, the grim effects of this colonisation can be traced through the forest cover of this country, because when the Spaniards took over this country, the forest cover was 92%, now we have about 24%. In over three hundred years! This already shows something, that the country has been overexploited. What follows, of course, is that the local people have no rights. Or they do not realise that they have such rights to the very nature they have around them. Because of this, they don’t try to take up the lead in its protection, but exploit it further, because that’s what they’ve been taught. And, in my opinion, it is the biggest problem. And culturally, yes, it is a very diverse country, but also in terms of maybe not caste, because we don’t have castes there, but the material status of the Filipinos differs a lot, and this also has its reflection in nature conservation. Among other things.
Host: On top of that, there is a very different structure of beliefs. After all, we have the radicalised, Muslim part. We also have a part that believes very strongly in European values and Western Christian beliefs. There is also a population that believes in an Eastern system of values. And in the middle of this, there is a tourist who often comes there. Which, I have the impression, is becoming increasingly fashionable today. Also here, in Poland, you hear a lot about trips to the Philippines. And because of this, among other things, the Philippines is now a part of the world that is very vulnerable to exploitation of this biodiversity not by the colonisers, not by the indigenous population, but by tourists.
Filip: Of course, here, if we talk about the Philippines we have a problem of this kind that there is no architecture and the tourist comes just for nature, for diving. Well, s/he will see some churches, whereas for us, from Poland, it is not as interesting as, for example, Cambodia, where we have Buddhism. So why do you go to the Philippines? To dive and to see nature. The local people see this and exploit some of the animal species.
Host: Well, are there already the first signs of this expansion?
Filip: Expansion?
Host: Expansion of tourism. It’s not just that we come somewhere, trample a path or even drive a car in. It’s only if the local people see that you can make money out of it, then big business comes in, huge money, hotels are built, resorts are built.
Filip: Yes, today on a lecture I’m going to talk about the example of the town of Oslob, or the municipality of Oslob – depending on how you translate it. Some years ago, they started to repel sharks through this kind of food made from five species of shrimp. This was effective and local people, and one resort in particular, found that this was a great source of income and local fishermen were asked to use this food to attract sharks for tourists to see. This was published in one UK magazine in 2011 and now, a dozen years later, it is the largest place of its kind in the world. 500,000 tourists visiting per year. 10 million dollars of revenue a year. These figures speak for themselves. And as you say, in the town itself, which was the poorest, we now have to deal with 50 resorts, hotels, hostels. The whole economy of the area has been transformed.
Host: I’m wondering what to do about this problem, and this is already a much more serious conversation than the one we had a moment ago. Well, because there is a problem. You propose to educate the local population. I feel that this is absolutely right, because change always has to start from the bottom. On the other hand, this big money is not going to stop, and it is difficult to discourage those who can afford to go here. Or from any other country in the western world, to simply give up on their dreams.
Filip: Yes, but here I would agree only partially. If you look at the statistics – in 2019 Philippines (pre-pandemic) – the revenue was more from local tourists, for example Manila, and if we are talking about hiring travel agencies – 99% of the revenue was domestic market. So educating the locals is not just the fishermen, the farmers not to use their nature for this, but also the rich people in the Philippines that this tourism doesn’t necessarily look like what they imagine it to look like.
Host: Sir Filip, you are also in charge of the conservation of such a very beautiful creature, the Philippine tarsier. What is it?
Filip: The Philippine tarsier is neither a lemur nor a monkey. But a primate, which is our very close relative, you could say. One of the smallest in the world.
Host: I envy him for his eyes.
Filip: It’s also his curse – that’s why he’s such an attraction, among other things.
Host: I’ll just add – very small, 80-160 g, 12 cm and that’s the size of an adult. Very bulging, huge eyes. Beautiful irises. Very gentle, calm character. At least looking at the face. In Google images it is very smiley.
Filip: I was bitten by this animal more than once during my research, so I would argue with that (laugh). On the other hand, it is interesting with these eyes – this is the largest eye-to-brain size ratio among mammals. It is unique in the world. It is a very interesting animal, very charismatic, I would say, and very little known, because it is nocturnal, solitary, small. It is very difficult to see this animal in the wild.
Host: But I associate that it’s recognisable, because I think the Philippine tarsier was a character in some episodes of the film ‘Madagascar’
Filip: Well, that’s where we’re getting confused, these were primates too, but they were lemurs, e.g., Mort is a mouse lemur. Close, but not quite that. On the other hand, we can often see tarsiers in memes that depict surprise. In different ways.
Host: Biology written in meme. OK. To what extent does this tourist activity, but not only that, the expansion of the western world into these often pristine areas, affect the occurrence of the Philippine tarsier or other species that support our biodiversity?
Filip: The Philippine tarsier is the biggest or second biggest tourist attraction on Bohol and the local people catch these animals to show them in sanctuaries, which, by the way, are not sanctuaries. And these animals do not reproduce in captivity. After a month, these animals die in these “so-called” sanctuaries. Every month, about 12 individuals are harvested from a small area of forest [in the are I worked].
Host: And if it wasn’t for that, a tarsier could live up to 12 years?
Filip: Of course.
Host: Sir Filip, it up to you to summarise our visit to the Faculty of Geography. I have the impression that the protection of biodiversity is such a Poznan organic grassroots job. Does such sensitisation really have an impact? I started our impact with the book “Around the world in 80 days”, which stimulates the imagination to travel. Not just ones that sound great as anecdotes, but ones that open your eyes and teach you to see the world differently. Is that what it’s meant to do?
Filip: Tourism can never be avoided. It is good. It opens our eyes, teaches the locals. But it must be done wisely. And this is the punch line of the AMU Tourism Days – to give tips on how to develop tourism without harming the environment, the people, us.
Host: Beautiful summary, thank you. Filip Wojciechowski from the Kahibalo Foundation was our guest.
And we also thank you for your hospitality and nice conversation 🙂 And animal tourism will certainly return again as a topic for our posts and conversations.
