Palau drought over

Transcript

A tourism operator in Palau says the drought is over, but the jellyfish population has declined rapidly. 

El Niño weather conditions caused widespread panic in the country, drying up water supplies and affecting one of the region's biggest attractions: Jellyfish Lake. 

Palau's Diving Adventures manager Chris Lobba spoke to Lucy Smith about the recovery process they're going through. 

CHRIS LOBBA: Yeah the initial impacts of the drought were severe water rationing; we were down to two hours of water per day and sometimes there was no water. But since then we've gotten enough rain and we're back to, you know, the droughts been alleviated in Palau. Really the lasting environmental impact has been the effects on Jellyfish lake, and we're starting to see a recovery at the lake even as we speak now. 

LUCY SMITH: What has that meant for your business? 

CHRIS LOBBA: We had to kind of look over and update our crisis management plan. You know that's kind of one of the last thing you ever think about, is the country you're working in and have your business in completely running out of water. But the restaurants were hit pretty hard, they couldn't wash the dishes so they went to paper plates and cups, things like that. 

LS: Did you notice fewer tourists coming? 

CL: To a degree, it definitely impacted business -- some people definitely cancelled trips. In fact we stopped reservations. The existing guests that we had we just kept and we just monitored the situation -- we didn't want to burden the environment anymore or make it worse. We definitely turned away people and we cancelled some trips as well during that month period. 

LS: What's the situation like now? 

CL: We're back up to normal on the water, we're getting water 24-hours a day. Really, the only lasting impact to Palau with this severe El Niño that came through has been the effect on Jellyfish lake. You know at one point we were down to only 5 precent of the jellyfish approximately left in the lake. The scientists have gone up there, they've looked at it, it is making a recovery. It should be a full recovery in the 1 - 2 year mark and a substantial recovery in the next couple months.  El Niño has happened before in Palau maybe about 20 years ago and they had a similar problem at Jellyfish lake and it made a full recovery, but the government and the scientists are recommending that tour companies don't go up there and kind of let the lake recover as much as possible.