Officials proposed to close Baikal for tourists
Sooner or later, the influx of tourists to Baikal will have to be limited in the interests of the environment, says Sergey Ivanov, special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for environmental protection at the All-Russian Water Congress.
The problem of mass tourist flow to the lake is that household waste is increasing at an “exorbitant rate”, and small hotels are being built on the shores, which are almost not equipped with sewage treatment plants.
Irina Orlova, Scientific Secretary of the Scientific Council for Baikal of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, calls wastewater the main problem. In 90% of the settlements around Lake Baikal there are no treatment facilities, and the functioning ones have expired their service life, and the depreciation is 80%.
“It is necessary to plan the development of tourist territories taking into account the environmental load,” said the representative of the Ministry of Economic Development, which oversees tourism. This ministry, together with the Ministry of Natural Resources, is already making a pilot project for the development of sustainable ecological tourism on Lake Baikal: the Lake Baikal Foundation will establish a company that will develop cognitive, environmental and event tours to the protected natural territory of Lake Baikal.
Profits from the sale of tours will be listed as grants for the development of the territory: the creation of ecological trails and infrastructure.
Tourmarket emphasizes – the share of organized tourists accounts for about 5%, the main “man-made pollution” comes from residents of the surrounding areas, who come by car and “entertain themselves”, including arranging natural landfills.
Restrictions are needed for natural tourists. Let organized tourists will be more, from them there is almost no harm, says the director of the Baikal State Natural Biosphere Reserve Vasily Sutula. In the reserve there is educational tourism, the visit center "Baikal Reserved". For tourists, it is necessary to create conditions that minimize the negative impact on nature.
Source: tourprom