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Intern gets ‘rough’ treatment from marine sports personnel
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Posted on Aug 05 2005
Coastal Resource Management Office intern James Arriola said he had a hard time conducting his research about the environmental impact marine sports play in the Saipan lagoon when he tried to interview marine sports providers recently.
Arriola made this disclosure during the graduation rites for interns of the 2005 Coral Reef Initiative Summer Internship Program at the Division of Environmental Quality conference room Tuesday.
Arriola said the permit holders would be very unaccommodating when he requested them for a brief moment to answer some questionnaires for the environmental agency.
He said his only purpose for the field survey was to assess the environmental impact marine sports play in the lagoon and observe the economic versus the environmental aspects of marine sports provider.
Arriola said he also wanted to determine where most permit violations occur in order to address possible amendments to pre-existing permit regulations.
He said he made a questionnaire for permit holders and the employees at each marine sports concession area asking questions like how do they sustain their respective businesses, their length of stay on the island, and if they feel that the lagoon is being commercialized by marine sports providers.
Arriola said most of the marine sports providers answered that they maintain operations through personal funding and loans from banks, will stay indefinitely, and most of them agree that the lagoon is now very commercialized.
CRM director Jack Salas admitted that hostility from marine sports providers is common and that this has become a challenge for his office to overcome.
He said apart from the hostility of some sports marine providers, he learned that the language barrier is also big obstacle in improving relations between the CRM and the sports marine providers.
Salas also believed that the uncooperative nature of sports marine providers is due to their fear of the CRM.
