While international travel may be a stretch during this pandemic, local tourism is slowly warming up, with people again visiting famous sites including a bamboo eco-park in Baguio that could rival that of Kyoto’s Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.
[READ: Starting Oct. 21, non-essential international travel is allowed. In the middle of a pandemic]
But even before more people could enjoy this nature-oriented destination, Baguio Bamboo Eco-Park at St. Francis Xavier Seminary in Liteng, Pacdal, Baguio City has been closed down. Why? Because of tourist vandalism.
In a post dated Nov. 9, Philippine Bamboo Foundation president Edgardo Manda said, “Some visitors do not respect the place and have defaced bamboo culms (or poles) by engraving their names and relieving themselves along the pathway.”
A local page called Vagabond Igorot first brought the issue to light in a series of photographs that prominently show the damage done by the vandals. The park is home to some local species of bamboo that is slated to cover up to a million hectares of land, according to the Baguio City local government.
Opened in March, the bamboo plantation is part of the country’s commitment to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to reforest 20 million hectares by 2020, in an effort to conserve the environment.
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