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Sorawit Worrawatkittikhun

Ms. Stefanie

English 10

15 March 2019

Ecotourism in Koh Lipe

Ecotourism is a term, or more like a rule, to not let tourists ruin the natural environment

of the tourist attractions. Ecotourism can help to improve local life and the facilities in the area.

It can also spread the culture of that tourist attraction to other parts of the world. In order to keep

our business going we must support ecotourism, Bundhaya resort has improved the environment

of the resort and is willing to support many eco-friendly programs and businesses to be

sustainable and improve the the koh Lipe island.

Ecotourism takes place on Koh Lipe and the Adang island nearby. Koh Lipe island and

the local life are being damaged by over tourism. On Koh Lipe, I am the hotel owner of

Bundhaya Resort, where we have two types of accomodations. One is a resort and the other is a

set of villas (Bundaya, 2019). Having many customers is a good thing for my business. If one

day all of a sudden the island has to be shut down for maintenance, my hotel and other

businesses also will have to shut down. We then would need to fire a lot of workers because

there are no tourists who bring in business. This will affect the local jobs because most of the

workers in the hotel are people who live on the island (De Groot, 2019). From what I observe

there are people who had come to work on koh Lipe island only for the high season, they come
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work here because they can earn more money here than the place they came from, people who

come work here tend to want more tourist.

A pizza restaurant owner I had interviewed said that the sea gypsies, local people on the

island, were the ones who were affected by tourism the most. Before the island became famous,

there were not many people, so there was no need for any kind of hotel, restaurant, land

transportation, etc businesses. Many other restaurant owner also said that the place that there

restaurant is located used to be a beautiful white sand beach around 10 years ago. Later on, after

10 years had passed when Koh Lipe island became famous, the sea gypsies then needed to have

a business of their own so they could make money to survive on this new environment. This

small island of 3.5 km in length and 2.5 km in width then quickly filled with resorts, houses for

800 plus residents or for rent, and tourists (​Brožík, 2019​).

Is Koh Lipe environment reaching the point that is considered danger for the island.

There are 33 flights daily to Koh Lipe island, so there is approximately 1,500,000 to 2,000,000

visitors who travel to Koh Lipe island a year (Ms. Stefanie statistic). Koh Lipe is definitely

challenging it’s limit of how many tourist it can hold every day. Some tourists throw trash on the

ground, and smokers also throw away filters on the island. The waste that is being thrown on the

ground often is paper, cigarette filters and plastic/glass bottle (Local I interview). The local I had

interviewed said that he wants to tell tourist to pick up trash that they throw on the ground, but he

didn’t. No one tend to care or say anything about a bottle, paper, cigarette filter being throw on

the ground, so he just pretend he did see anything. The main reason is that he doesn’t want to
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have an argument or get in a fight with tourist. The time that takes paper to decompose is 2-5

months, cigarette filters take 12 years, and plastic takes 450 years or more to decompose (​Koh

Lipe, 2019​). Tourists should avoid using toilets that are near the beaches because the waste will

filter through the sand and go into the ocean so fish can ingest the toxic substances that did not

filter through, as well as contaminate the beach (​Responsible Tourism, 2019​). Tourist should

start to consider what they can do to prevent these action and have empathy on the local that live

there.

There were places that had faced the same problem before and those places are Boracay

island in the Philippines and Koh Phi Phi in Thailand. These two islands were overwhelmed by

tourists, and eventually tourists caused the two island to be closed down for recovery. Even

though people throw trash in the garbage, the trash will somehow find its way to the sea anyway.

Tourist can accidentally damage or even kill corals with sunscreen, sunscreen contain chemicals

that can damage corals (Paul Eshoo, 2018). Lipe island might also face the same path as the

other two islands. (Hugh Morris 2018) If Koh lipe have to be close down for recovery, our

hotel’s staff will loses job and I, the owner, will not earn any money.

My customer can help koh Lipe by following the list of things that they can do to help: use less

electricity and water. Re-use their water bottle. Close water when they are not using. There will

be things that our customer can participate in to help the island, if our customer help the Trash

Hero clean the beach, e​very monday at the beach on 10 am Trash Hero will pick up trash (9

simple ways, 2019).​ Our customer will receive 800 THB or a free set of diner for a person, but
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they must take video or picture to prove that they had actually did help the Trash Hero. ​We can

make a video that raise awareness and put it in Tv in a separate channel also in every TV that are

in our hotel. ​The idea of working with the Trash Hero organization might work if our customer

are a kind person and the second idea will also work because every times our customer turn the

TV on they will be on the awareness video channel, the video need to look interesting so the

customer will take their time to watch and think about the situation that koh Lipe is in..
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References

9 simple ways you can help Koh Lipe's eco-friendly culture. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.responsiblethailand.co.uk/green-tourism/koh-lipe-thailand-eco-friendly-culture

-tips/

Brožík, J. (n.d.). Koh Lipe. Retrieved from

http://thajsko.com/pruvodce/provincie/satun/kolipe/kolipeE.htm

Bundhaya Resort - Koh Lipe, Satun, Thailand. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.bundhayaresort.com/

Koh Lipe Hotels. (n.d.). Retrieved from ​http://www.kohlipe.net/responsible_tourism.html

De Groot. (n.d.). The settlement of Ko Lipe (1910 - 2010). Retrieved from

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzUyEgGl1wmqMG5sdk02QW9Hcl9Qa0t4VmNwc0Zfd

HlnMWln/view

Eshoo, P. (2018, January 25). Minimizing Your Impact on Koh Lipe. Retrieved from

https://www.mekongtourism.org/minimizing-impact-koh-lipe/

Morris, H. (2018, September 13). What's happening in Boracay, the island paradise ruined by

tourism? Retrieved​ from

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/philippines/articles/boracay-closure-when-will-island

-reopen/