RAPU-RAPU, Albay -- The inter-agency Bicol Eco-tourism Committee is banking on the Lafayette Philippines Inc. for help in developing an eco-tourism zone in this island town where the Australian corporation is operating a 17-hectare open-pit copper and zinc mine.

        Nini Ravanilla, regional director of the Department of Tourism in Bicol, said the committee is drafting a tourism development plan, whose focus will be the “Balik Biyaya” program.

        In a visit to the mining site on Monday, the committee urged the mining corporation to offer logistical support such as the putting up of development facilities to attract tourists to the fourth class Rapu-Rapu town, which is part of the Bicol region’s identified tourism circuit.

        Ravanilla said the “Balik Biyaya” program will bring socio-economic benefits to the mining firm’s host community.

        “If the mining firm will invest on eco-tourism rather than on dole-outs and one-time events, it will leave a sustainable impact on the host community. Tourism will boost local economic growth,” Ravanilla said.

        The Lafayette, which produces some 3,000 tons of ore per day and one million tons per year for the next five years, claimed to have spent P15.4-million worth of social development projects from 2000 to 2006 and has a total budget of P28.1 million for 2007.

        Committee consultant Dante Intong said they are now studying potential tourist spots that can be developed as the island town’s tourism icon like Mt. Mayon of Albay and the whaleshark of Donsol, Sorsogon.

        He said Rapu-Rapu has extraordinary coral reefs and dive sites along the island’s perimeter. There are also long beach fronts of powdery white sand in Barangay Mananao and its neighboring villages backdropped with the island’s green slopes, where there is, reportedly, a breeding ground of turtles.

        He said the mining site itself can also be turned into a tourist destination if developed for such purpose just like the Bacon-Manito geothermal plant, which now has an eco-tourism park, bat sanctuary and twin falls within its site.

        Intong urged the government to strengthen its coastal resource management program in order to preserve the region’s rich marine resources.

        However, Intong observed that local government officials usually have faint political will to implement stringent preservation and conservation measures.

        “Since Lafayette occupies a big portion of the island, it should be one of the primary stakeholders of eco-tourism. Also, the mining firm has a social responsibility to fulfill,” Intong said.

        He added that the host communities cannot get much of the revenues from the mining firm since it was declared by President Macapagal-Arroyo as a Special Economic Zone through Proclamation 625, which deprives the town and the province of due royalty.

        “As early as now the corporation has to start living up to its social responsibilities so that when they leave after five years, we will see that the community’s standard of living had been uplifted,” Intong said.

        Lafayette’s three direct impact communities are the villages of Pagcolbon, Malobago, and Binosawan and its three indirect impact communities are Linao, Tinopan, and Sta. Barbara.

        Rapu-Rapu island can be reached through a two-hour pump-boat ride traversing the Albay Gulf from the port of Legazpi City or 45 minutes from Sorsogon province.