September is science and tourism month and I find it appropriate to write how the two can meet in a common ground without one putting down the other as restrictive or destructive. All these celebrations have something to do with the environment or nature and people; words that incidentally are also linked to the Visayan word kinaiyahan.
Kinaiyahan is formed from three distinct Visayan words (kina + iya + han). The root word kinaiya, from kina and iya, refers to the “most pronounced” (kina) traits and ways “possessed” (iya) by a person. It can also be taken as culture unique to certain group of people, in fact, what is cultural is sometimes misconstrued as natural. The word han is attached to kinaiya as suffix to indicate natural features in places around us (see A Dictionary of Visayan Cebuano compiled by John U. Wolff, 1972).
Humans have both the nature to survive and the culture for survival. In the past, there was innate harmony between humans and nature when foods in the wild were enough to provide the nutritional needs of sparsely distributed human population. But as their population grew in rocketing rates and needs were supplanted by wants to satisfy greed, humans were competing or fighting each other for control and exploitation of food and natural resources.
During the last half of the 20th century and the recent decades, environmental groups had thrived to protect and preserve what remaining natural resources we have by promoting the culture of conservation and sustainable resource use. But every environmental group, like the resource users, has also its own kinaiya anchored on science but divided by seemingly contradicting ethics that guide their agenda and actions.
There are groups that adhere to extractive conservation ethic which looks forward to resource harvest after certain period of effective resource management. But this is opposed by groups inspired by biotelic conservation ethic which promotes the view of protecting nature and leaving it entirely alone for its own sake. Meanwhile, aesthetic conservation ethic adheres to environmental appreciation as one of the acceptable goals of protecting and preserving nature.
Certainly these environmental groups have something in common that could benefit nature, but they cannot agree where the appropriate place of humans is in the process of protecting and preserving it. They are similarly guided by science in coming up with decisions to mitigate environmental problems, but their research agenda are differentiated by their respective goals.
In the long run, extractive conservation is not truly sustainable when more and more resource users have to be satisfied while biotelic conservation may create an impoverished community displaced from or deprived of an abundant environment. The latter is principally driven by the idea of separating humans and wildlife through the establishment of protected areas in the strictest sense.
But aesthetic conservation allows the consumption by paying individuals of awesome experiences and spectacles from the resources in protected areas to compensate those managing them but prevented from the extractive use of the said resources. The former refers to tourists while the latter includes the fishers, farmers or forest dwellers who traditionally subsisted in now protected areas. Aesthetic conservation is equally informed by the principles of the environmental sciences and ecotourism development.
Ecotourism according to the International Tourism Society is a form of “responsible travel to natural areas, which conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people.” It is not only a business of making money from adventure-seeking and leisure-hungry tourists. Ecotourism enterprise is also protecting and preserving nature and local culture by educating tourists how to help in sustaining the beauty and biodiversity of places and the dignity of people they had visited.
In Negros Oriental, two types of protected areas are present primarily as conservation tools and secondly for ecotourism: lakes and marine areas. These are also rich research areas for natural and social scientists of Silliman University and from international universities and environmental organizations.
The lakes include Danao and Balinsasayao in Sibulan and Balanan in Siaton which are already accessible by concrete roads and have amenities for tourists. The most popular marine protected area is off Apo Island in Dauin but there are also several others off the mainland of this town–now a favorite dive destination of tourists. Annually, Dauin holds on September 7 the Kinaiyahan Festival not only to celebrate its religious feast but also to highlight its cultural and environmental programs.
Protected areas in the province as tourist destinations are earning from user fees collected by the designated personnel of concerned local government units (LGUs) and the Protected Area Management Board of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. User fees collected are allocated for the environmental program of the government, the management of protected areas, the honoraria of deputized local enforces and workers, and the funds to support projects that benefit local communities.
In conclusion, caring also for people displaced from protected areas, especially the traditional or indigenous settlers, by sharing with them ecotourism benefits accumulated from user fees and through newly introduced livelihood opportunities may develop on them the kinaiya (culture) of protecting and preserving the kinaiyahan (nature) where all these ecosystem services they enjoy now come from. Indeed, environmental sciences and ecotourism development can complement rather than contradict each other.
