The environmental assessment of planned enhancements to the Kalabera Cave is 30 percent complete, according to Ed Arriola Jr., chairman of the Marianas Visitors Authority’s Destination Enhancement Committee.<\/p>\n
The committee is planning to install an elevated walkway and lighting in a bid to establish the site as a tourist attraction. The Kalabera Cave closed this summer in order for Cabrera & Associates to conduct an assessment on the impact of the changes. <\/p>\n
The walls of Kalabera Cave are adorned with ancient artwork likely painted by Saipan’s indigenous Chamorro people, giving the site a special significance to local cultural groups. During the Battle of Saipan, the cave also served as a field hospital for Japanese soldiers.<\/p>\n
Kalabera’s slippery rocks and the darkness in some of its deeper reaches have prevented many tourists from visiting it. <\/p>\n
The report will be submitted to the U.S. Department of the Interior, and if they approve, the DOI will provide the $1.5 million to fund the project, Arriola said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The environmental assessment of planned enhancements to the Kalabera Cave is 30 percent complete, according to Ed Arriola Jr., chairman of the Marianas Visitors Authority’s Destination Enhancement Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}