The Conservation Report

The reality of MTV’s “Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Island” is ugly, since it seems the gentler MTV of the 1980s has grown into a corporate monster that will stop at nothing to produce and air its worthless crap. While filming and producing “Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Island,” MTV trashed Boca del Drago Island, which is located in the Republic of Panama. According to one eyewitness, MTV made very little if any attempts to cleanup or remedy their ecological footprint imposed on the pristine area. Although the piece of land was private, an eyewitness observed, “I can assure all of you that had this been done in any urban/suburban neighborhood, almost anywhere else, the neighbors would have been justified in entering a legal complaint against the landowner.” From ecorazzi.com:

As one would expect, the real “reality” is much less exciting. In fact, as was recently reported by Michael Drake on the Tree Climber’s Coalition site, not only is the show basically scripted and shot in and around civilization, but it also appears to have done a good deal of environmental damage. Drake, along with others living on Boca del Drago Island in the Republic of Panama witnessed MTV clear a large section of rainforest for the set construction. In addition, they also trashed a pristine beach, disturbed a bird sanctuary island “off-limits” to human visitations, and left behind an insane amount of garbage, set debris, and refuse.

As Drake wrote, “MTV’s behavior in this situation has been rampantly inconsistent with their self-proclaimed ‘MTV Green Crusade’. I sense a bit of hypocrisy and I question their commitment toward being ‘green’.”

A firsthand account of the destruction is provided by Michael Drake via Tree Climber’s Coalition:

Not only are the beaches public but there are laws that are “supposed” to keep people from building structures within a certain distance from the beach. It was reported that a number of structures, including some bamboo tiki-type huts, had been constructed right at the high-water mark on the beach. All of this was done in an area of previously undisturbed tropical rainforest along a pristine Caribbean beach. Even though much of the property in the area is privately owned, including the spot of the MTV scenario, the property owners have done little to disturb the tranquil and wild quality of the surrounding rainforest and beachfront. MTV’s presence and activity showed no respect whatsoever for this idea.

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Finally, toward the end of July, we were told that the “show” was over and that the crew and the participants were gone. One of our students and I took a walk out toward the area to see what was to be seen. The security was gone, the gate on the road was closed, and life seemed back to normal. We found the “new” driveway that had been made to access the site and we took a cautious walk down toward the beach. All was quiet; nobody stopped us. Down the hill we went toward the beach and began to see just what a crew of TV people could do when they decided to make a production. The place looked like a trash dump and there was an area of devastation inconsistent with the surrounding forest. MTV had packed up and gone and there was nothing left behind that could be compared with what had been there before. Refer to the photos at the start of this article in order to get a visual idea of what I am talking about here. I have seen the aftermath of a tornado and this was almost as bad. The area had been deserted with little attempt at any sort of cleanup of the mess.