Golf tourists causing water shortages
Large parts of the coastline around the Mediterranean are being threatened by plans to built hundreds of new golf courses, according to an environmental report.
According to a report in The Guardian, research by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) shows that each course consumes the same amount of water as a town of 12,000 people. There are reportedly plans for 89 new courses in the south-east of Spain alone, with 40 more due to be built in Greece and eight more in Cyprus.
The WWF is reportedly telling tourists that they should consider boycotting golf courses in arid areas, as well as taking shorter showers.
Aside from golf, the report states that many areas of the Mediterranean region are “wilting under the pressure” of too much tourism development. A WWF spokesman is quoted as saying: “The tourism industry depends on water and, at the moment, it is destroying the very resource it needs.”
The report is also scathing about the amount of pollution caused by tourism – the industry is responsible for seven per cent of pollution in the Mediterranean Sea. It states: “health problems such as infections of the ear, nose and throat, hepatitis and dysentery can result from swimming in polluted sea waters.”
Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad
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