Hainan golf tourism – Balancing ecology with economy is the key

Luxury golf resorts are springing up in all corners of Hainan as the local government steps up its campaign to transform the island into the Hawaii of the east.

The biggest project is Mission Hills Hainan, a vast undertaking that when finished will have at least 10 courses and cover an area nearly one and a half times the size of Manhattan.

Environmentalists are alarmed by the potentially damaging effects of golf course construction on an island featuring rainforests, mountains, volcanoes and more than 300 endangered species.

"Where does this begin and where does it end?" said Jonathan Smith, chief executive of the Golf Environment Organization, a non-governmental organization aimed at promoting sustainable golf.

Clearwater Bay Golf Club is planning to compliment its three courses with a six or seven star hotel, while Yalong Bay Golf Club has bought the land to open a second course.

But those developments are dwarfed by the scale of Mission Hills, where there are three courses, a 525-room hotel, 11 restaurants and plans for three conference rooms, three shopping malls and a spa.

In October, Hollywood actors including Hugh Grant and Matthew McConaughey will join multiple major winners Greg Norman and Nick Faldo for the Mission Hills Star Trophy, with the winner set to scoop $1.28 million.

The sheer scale of development has also raised eyebrows at international environmental activists Greenpeace.

"Because Hainan is known for its vast and dense rainforest, it is very important to China and to the world," Yi Lan, a forest campaigner for Greenpeace China, told CNN. "Any large-scale construction of golf courses would damage the local ecosystem.

He told CNN: "I met with the head of a local environmental group who thought he had secured rights to open up a forest park on part of the land. They had worked for years to get approvals from the government and local village groups.

"Then, all of a sudden, they were told their plans had been shelved. They soon found out the reason why. It was because of the Mission Hills project."

Mission Hills, which also owns a massive 12-course golf complex in Shenzhen on the Chinese mainland, say their Hainan project has created thousands of jobs and was subject to stringent environmental impact assessments.

"Mission Hills has always strived to balance economic benefits to the community with proper stewardship of the environment," Dr Ken Chu, Group Executive Vice Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer of the Mission Hills Group, told CNN by email.

"By incorporating low-density development with vast open-space greenbelts, our current project in Haikou has transformed a barren, lava-rock landscape into an economically productive community."

Their claims are backed up by the local government, with spokesman Mr. Zhao telling CNN that the location of the complex followed "careful" investigation.

"You have to say that the Mission Hills developments have been high-impact in environmental terms," says Smith.

"You can’t deny that when there’s the level of earth-shifting and movement of land form that there has been in the previous development. It’s large-scale and each development couldn’t really be defined as light touch.

"Then you have the longer-term concerns over where does the water come from, where does the energy come from? Is it all fossil fuels? How much energy is required to desalinate or treat the sewage water?"

Shane Templeton, a golf course consultant on Hainan for six years, says the sport can bring huge benefits to the island’s economy if it is kept in balance with the local infrastructure.

"Golf is great for Hainan and it’s a vehicle for bringing a lot of foreign exchange, but it’s got to be done carefully and within reason," he told CNN.

"I don’t know who is regulating these people. You don’t want 50 golf courses but no buses and no sewage systems — it’s got to grow together with everything."

Smith wants to see an end to the clandestine culture surrounding golf course construction in China.

"What we would like to see is more transparency," he said. "We would like to see the government’s plans for the levels of development in Hainan clearly depicted so that people can understand the levels and type of development that are likely to take place in such regions."