PAPEÉTE, Tahiti (11 August 2006) -- The future of an eco-hotel called The Brando on the late actor's atoll of Tetiaroa depends on the outcome of a year-long project for the Temaru government to classify the lagoon as a natural reserve. "We want this to be an environmentally responsible resort," said Richard Bailey, CEO of Tahiti Beachcomber SA, the owning company of four InterContinental hotels in French Polynesia. "If the government and the public do not wish to see this incredible atoll preserved in an environmentally responsible manner, then it will not be of much interest to our visitors," Bailey said. "In addition, this is what Marlon wanted. The research community will not be interested in Tetiaroa if it is not protected." The government approved a building permit for The Brando a year ago, Bailey said. The proposed eco-resort calls for 40 units, none of which would be built in or over the water. That rules out one of French Polynesia's most popular hotel accommodations, the famous over-the-water bungalow. However, "the project has been delayed," Bailey said, "first because we are not ready logistically and financially, and second because I consider the classifying and protection of the atoll as sufficiently important to be a condition precedent to commencing the project. "We need to know what protective measures will be in place before making the sizeable investment that will be necessary," he said. "I presented a plan to Tahiti's government and the town of Arue a year ago for classifying the lagoon as a natural reserve," said Bailey. Tetiaroa, 26 miles (42 km) north of the island of Tahiti, comes under the jurisdiction of Tahiti's northwest coast Commune of Arue, adjacent to the capital City of Papeéte. That plan was presented by Tahiti Beachcomber SA and the Marlon Brando Estate, he said. "In cooperation with the government, we have done a complete baseline of science on the atoll, covering every aspect of the lagoon and the motu" (islets within the lagoon), Bailey said. The baseline scientific data collection involves such areas as archeology, bird life, fish life, plants, coconuts and insects, he said. The point of such data collecting, he said, is, "before you put a piece of property in a natural reserve, you determine what is already there, what the existing ecology is. Science is about changes, and to know what changes you have to know what was there to begin with." "Based on the results of these data, certain protective measures are currently being discussed," he said. Asked to elaborate, Bailey said, "We're trying to get a complete ban on fishing inside the Tetiaroa lagoon." Why no fishing there? "Because there's hardly any fish inside the lagoon," Bailey said. "There's also a lot less sea turtles, which Tetiaroa used to be famous for." But Bailey's proposed fishing ban has not been popular with fishermen, as was demonstrated on Monday night when they attended a meeting at the Arue Town Hall organized by the Temaru government's Ministry of Durable Development and the Environment. According to the office of Arue Mayor Philip Schyle, there are some 10 fishermen fishing inside the Tetiaroa lagoon. "The majority of fishermen carry out their fishing on the exterior (coral reef) slopes of the atoll, and we estimate they catch 400 kilos of fish per week. "However, fishing remains seasonal with idle periods spread out over one month," according to the mayor's office. Monday night's meeting clearly showed, according to a brief report in Tuesday's French daily newspaper La Dépêche de Tahiti, that the fishermen are "categorically opposed to the project of fishing zoning called for by the Brando family and the promoters of the hotel project. "These people are not owners of the ocean," said the head of a fishing cooperative at the meeting. "We accept that the hotel should be protected, but not that they prevent us from working." Bailey said he and the Brando family initially sought to have no boats allowed to within a kilometer of Tetiaroa's coral reef on the ocean side. But he said that was later dropped when the fishermen revealed there are a few areas closer to the reef than one kilometer that are rich with tuna. But Bailey emphasized the importance of a natural reserve classification spelling out all the details of what can and cannot be done inside the Tetiaroa lagoon. "A natural reserve means a rigid framework that applies to everyone. For us, that means setting up the parameters that we will have to respect in building and operating the eco-resort." He said another proposal he and the Brando family have made would ban all hydrocarbons from the lagoon. That, he said, would mean no Jet Skis and no gasoline or diesel fueled boats. Other, more eco-friendly energy sources would have to be used. | | According to the project's developer, The Brando eco-hotel will be exactly what Marlon would have wanted: "energy-autonomous and built with natural materials". The resort will not be built over water and will be nearly invisible from the sea. It will also utilize cutting edge renewable energy technologies including an air-conditioning system that extracts cold water from the depths of the sea. All hydrocarbons may be banned, which would eliminate jet skis as well as gasoline and diesel fueled boats. They have also proposed banning all visitors from setting foot on Tetiaroa's famous "bird island", which is actually an islet. Visits would continue to be organized, but a platform would be built to allow visitors to observe the bird sanctuary, Bailey said. That would stop visitors from roaming around the sanctuary, disturbing the birds and their babies, he said. Bailey noted during the interview with Tahitipresse that he and the Brando family have already proposed or instigated many of the proposals contained in a recent e-mail letter sent out by a U.S. group calling itself "Friends of Tetiaroa". "We all have the same basic interest," Bailey said. "We want to protect Tetiaroa's present and future environment." Asked to specify who the "we" are, he said, "the (Temaru) government, the Arue mayor's office, the government's Environmental Ministry, Tahiti Beachcomber SA, the Brando family and, yes, Friends of Tetiaroa, who want the same strict environmental safeguards that the rest of us do. "And what we want to do on Tetiaroa is totally in keeping with what Brando would have wanted," Bailey said. Brando, who died at the age of 80 in July 2004, bought Tetiaroa after starring in the 1962 Hollywood film, "Mutiny on the Bounty." But Brando did not buy the entire atoll. He bought 438.75 hectares (1,084 acres) of Tetiaroa on October 17, 1966, paying 17,492,000 French Pacific francs, which today is the equivalent of US$197,944. Brando used the atoll as his private getaway, building a small 14-bungalow hotel, which ended up being run by Tarita Teriipaia, the Tahitian who starred in the movie with him and became the mother of their two children. The hotel has been closed since March 2004. "The Brando eco-hotel will be exactly what Marlon would have wanted: energy-autonomous and built with natural materials," Bailey said. "It will rest lightly on its environment and be nearly invisible from the water. It will showcase the latest in renewable energy technologies, including some we are already employing in our new hotel on Bora Bora, which Marlon had promised to inaugurate." Bailey was referring to the US$70 million 80-villa InterContinental Resort and Thalasso Spa Bora Bora that opened on May 1. It was Brando who gave Bailey the idea of running the hotel's air-conditioning system on water extracted from the depths of the sea. A fervent defender of the environment, Brando had been following with great interest the first practical applications of this new technology in buildings in Hawaii. The result is that the new Bora Bora InterContinental is the first hotel in the world to use this revolutionary system to air condition its facilities. Bailey said the plans for the eco-hotel on Tetiaroa would definitely use the same system. "What's interesting is that we are finding people who want to come to Bora Bora and stay in our hotel just to see this deep-water system. We think we could get the same type of interest from the Tetiaroa hotel." SOURCE - TahitipresseCDNN Related NewsTAHITI - Dive Tetiaroa? Depends on Brando's will |
