MTV Cuts Down Rainforest for Reality TV Show
After the Viacom-owned network finished filming their new treasure-hunt themed “Real World/Road Rules Challenge” on a remote, uninhabited island in the Republic of Panama, locals returned to find their beach tattered and abused.
The television show, which premieres on September 17th, took over the neighboring, inhabited island in militant style by hiring the local police to prevent residents from accessing a public beach. As it turned out, according to local witnesses, MTV had cleared a small patch of rainforest to build a tiki-hut structure near the beach, developed an access road through the forest, and installed generators and lighting on the beach.
Since the beach was guarded by armed officers, the locals only heard rumors of the destruction until they were able to go back to the beach after filming had finished. “I have seen the aftermath of a tornado and this was almost as bad,” read the account, written by Jmaher and Michael Drake. “A large plot of rainforest had been cleared, a pristine Caribbean beach had been trashed, and the creators had simply packed up and left. A family of what appeared to be ‘squatters’ had already moved into one of the buildings left behind.”
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At the time of the writing, MTV had not yet announced the premiere of the television show. The authors deduced that the network had been behind the commotion after finding papers with MTV’s logo among other garbage littering small village’s the streets. The nearby uninhabited island (which the show’s contestants ravaged for hidden treasure) had not been visited by the writers, so we’ll have to watch the show to see how that island fared. All this comes after MTV’s recent efforts to encourage teens to go green.
“Perhaps I have been unjustified in my criticism and, if so, I will offer my apologies whenever it becomes obvious that I have been unfair,” the lengthy piece reads, nearing conclusion. “In the meanwhile I will continue to show my irritation for what I perceive Mtv to have done to a beautiful area of rainforest and beach.”
A trailer for the upcoming television show can be found here.
Photo Credit: Joe Crawford on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
[Via: Ecorazzi]Other Posts Relating to Environmental Destruction:
- Greenpeace, Dove, Palm Oil, and the Destruction of the Rainforest
- Greenpeace claims a McVictory
- Live Greenwashing About Healthy Food: McDonald’s Lettuce-Growing Billboard
Completely unacceptable.
The contestant that won the $300,000 need to give that money back to repair the destruction they have cause.
This is an example of how corporate america is going power-crazy. They think they rule the world and they can do anything anywhere without consequences. I hope MTV gets royally sued for this and I don’t mean for a couple millions, I mean something more like temporary network syndication or at least taking their filming permits from them.
@Alex: you shouldn’t advertise some individual or entity (in this case MTV) that your criticizing. The link to the trailer is unnecessary. If people are curious enough they’ll look for it.
What a Bummer. I think MTV should by Boycotted. I will never watch that show again, EVER.
Jiff
http://www.privacy.cz.tc
heard of hypocrites ?you can see them (the company) here
http://think.mtv.com/Issues/environment/
That show is on right now. I think it premiered last week. I don’t watch that crap, but I saw that it had been recapped on Television Without Pity. Those people are all assholes.
MTV’s job is to sell the talentless to the tasteless. If they have to kill some rain forest to do it, bummer. They dont care about the environment, just about the $$
If the island was uninhabited then how can there be locals?
For one thing, this makes sense that a tv network would not care about the environment and the idiots that are on the show would mess things up. But if this is an uninhabited island then there would be no locals to come back to see things since no one lives there.
Call me close minded but IMHO all those ‘lifestyle’ MTV shows are turning the kids that watch them into mindless narsasistic consumers who think they are living an alternative lifestyle. MTV has sucked for a very long time and whatever social conscience they started out with has been forgotten long ago