Tourist guides teach boatmen how to care for whale sharks

Manila: Every summer, boatmen and tourist guides in southern Luzon’s Bicol Region work as part-time teachers.

They give tips on how to take care of whale sharks to boatmen from different regions, especially those looking to develop whale-watching sites on their own shores, sources said.

The boatmen of Donsol, Sorsogon work as teachers and tourist guides during a series of five-day immersion activities.

The whale sharks are locally known as butanding (scientific name Rhincodon typus). They grow as long as 10 metres and weigh upto a tonne.

Dubbed as gentle giants, they have to be loved and not coerced by tourists, boatmen and tourist guides, said Allan Amanse, one of 28 fishermen trained by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF Philippines) in 1998 to become Butanding Interaction Officers (BIOs). Apart from training boatmen, Amanse also teaches tourists how to swim.

Although butandings made Donsol a popular tourist destination in the early ’90s, it was only in 1998 when community-based ecotourism was taught to residents raise awareness on the importance of giving special treatment to the butandings.

Donsol’s Butanding Ecotourism Development Project was implemented in 2008, when the Fisheries Administrative Order 193 (FAO 193) was implemented. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was one of the funders of the project.

Ecotourism in Donsol is all about the local community’s protection of the butandings, and for teaching tourists to be sensitive when they visit the “homes of the butandings [in the ocean],” WWF Philippines chief executive Lory Ta told the website loQal.

Donsol has been called the world’s butanding capital because of the documented sightings of 358 species, said WWF-Philippines communications manager Gregg Yan.

There are now 40 certified tourist guides who help tourists interact properly with butandings in Donsol.

Hoping to copy the success of Donsol’s ecotourism, several local government units nationwide have started sponsoring the fare, board and lodging of their respective boatmen and tourist guides to attend the educational training programme there.

The guides were also taught how to reforest their respective mangrove areas in order to promote the growth of plankton. Donsol Bay’s planktons have attracted the butandings, environmentalists said.

“We will continue sending boatmen engaged in tourism in Oslob town, Cebu [central Philippines] to Donsol, Sorsogon for immersion programme about the proper care of butanding,” Renelyn Villegas, region staff of the department of tourism in in central Philippines told the Philippine Information Authority (PIA).

The boatmen from Cebu who were trained in Donsol will help train others, said Villegas, adding the aim of the programme is to develop other butanding-friendly sites nationwide.

Oslob, Cebu recently became a major tourist attraction as soon as butandings were seen near the shore.

But animal rights groups reacted vehemently when a Cebu resident posted his photo atop a butanding on Facebook.

In response, the department of tourism drafted a plan to make local government units sponsor their respective boatmen and tourist guides to learn everything they could in Donsol.

This will help boatmen and tourist guides become responsible, said Villegas.

Butandings swim a kilometre away from the shores of Donsol shore, making it a perfect site for ecotourism enthusiasts.