These tourists are abandoning the tourist campsites made available to them and are setting up camp in undeveloped areas and on private property, causing damage to agricultural land and the ecosystem, and undermining the authorities' efforts to provide the city with quality tourist infrastructure. "What is happening is that a certain number of tourists are not going to the three tourist campsites made available to them and prefer to camp outdoors and on private land, which poses many environmental and economic problems," an association actor told Hespress. Beyond the "serious damage to agricultural land" that this phenomenon can cause, "the direct contact of these tourists with the inhabitants, outside of an appropriate framework or infrastructure, can lead to certain problems of a criminal nature, such as the harassment of children or other similar incidents, problems of this type having already occurred", observes the activist, specifying that "the persistence of this phenomenon involves environmental risks on the one hand, and can lead to economic losses both for the municipality and for investors who have devoted their funds to tourist campsites."
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The same actor also invited the municipality of Tafraout to "develop new spaces that respect safety, hygiene and environmental conditions, in order to limit the phenomenon of wild camping and to guarantee the respect of private property by tourists using caravans who flock to the region. "For his part, an association leader stressed that the large number of tourists with caravans who flock to the city each year "exceeds the capacity of the three existing tourist campsites in the region."
According to him, this massive influx could explain this phenomenon that he did not fail to condemn. The local authorities are trying to solve this problem. "We have submitted a request for temporary occupation of a five-hectare forest land to build a modern campsite to accommodate the large number of tourists who visit the region," he said, adding that with regard to the environmental aspect, "the municipality, in collaboration with an economic partner, has set up a station in the center of the city of Tafraout, connected to the sanitation network, allowing tourists to dispose of their waste safely and to access drinking water."