I vow to tread lightly, act kindly, and explore mindfully.

September 21, 2018 7:13 AM

Palau is an nation made up of a chain of islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has just 21,000 citizens, and hosts more than 150,000 tourists each year. But how can a nation with such a heavy reliance on tourism protect itself to maintain the beauty that those tourists are looking for? Perhaps by making each visitor sign a pledge in their passport upon arrival.

The Palau Pledge has won several advertising awards in its first year.

Children of Palau,
I take this Pledge,
To preserve and protect your beautiful and unique island home.
I vow to tread lightly, act kindly, and explore mindfully.
I shall not take what is not given.
I shall not harm what does not harm me.
The only footprints I shall leave are those that will wash away.

(via the Good News Podcast)

posted by Etrigan (7 comments total)

Cosigned. There's just over 300,000 people living in my country, but we had something like 2.5 million tourists come in last year. We ought to adopt the same pledge, with the addition of "I shall avoid booking with Airbnb whenever possible."
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:22 AM on September 21, 2018 [11 favorites]

The fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt.

--The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
posted by zombieflanders at 7:46 AM on September 21, 2018 [17 favorites]

It needs a threat clause, like medieval book curses

If I break this pledge, may the Worm That Dieth Not
Eat my entrails and
Leave trash all over my home.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:41 AM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

You might (also?) want to watch out for the carbon footprint of getting there.
posted by hawthorne at 10:29 AM on September 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Palau is also the home of Jellyfish Lake, which for a few years I was seeing everywhere in stock photography. It is currently closed to swimmers due to an El Nino event and drought affecting the population in 2015-16. (Previously)
posted by momus_window at 2:50 PM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

This whole idea that you go somewhere else to forget what you signed up for in the place you live sucks vital energy out of the place you live and prolongs illusions until they thoroughly dry and if enough of you escape to the same place, you change it. You change the economy. You fuck it up just by being there.

Don't ever think that going somewhere and spending money mitigates your presence. You'll stop coming when the market crashes and the pain will be all about you not being able to escape what you made.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:40 PM on September 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

You'll stop coming when the market crashes and the pain will be all about you not being able to escape what you made.

lot of lifting being done by the word you there. might almost be more to it than that.
posted by lalochezia at 7:53 PM on September 21, 2018 [4 favorites]