Philippines closes ‘cesspool’ tourist island of Boracay

The Philippines has announced a six-month closure of the popular tourist destination of Boracay over concerns the island’s famous beaches and clear blue waters have been transformed into a “cesspool” due to sustained environmental damage.

The closure, which will begin April 26, was announced following a cabinet meeting Wednesday, and would be a “total closure” to tourists, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said. No other information was made available, CNN Philippines reported.

A similar decision was made in Thailand where Maya Bay, on Phi Phi Leh island in the Andaman Sea, will be closed for four months starting in June.

Many Thai marine parks close for part of the year but the release of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, “The Beach,” in 2000 made picturesque Maya Bay so popular it stayed open year-round. It averages 200 boats and 4,000 visitors daily.

The archipelago nation of the Philippines boasts well over 7,000 islands, and among them Boracay had come to be almost a byword for white-sand beach paradise.

But with an influx of tourists that began in the 1980s the island has struggled to maintain its idyllic allure. Last year almost 1.7 million tourists, including a significant number of cruise line passengers, visited the island during a 10-month period, according to the governmental Philippines Information Agency,

Among the problems caused by the island’s long-running tourism boom is unregulated development and pipes carrying raw effluence directly into the sea.

In a survey of the island’s sewerage facilities, the vast majority — 716 of 834 — residential and business properties were found to have no discharge permit and were presumed to be draining waste water directly into the sea, according to a report by the official Philippines News Agency.

In February Duterte directly called out the alleged mismanagement of the island, accusing those responsible of turning it into a “cesspool.”