Mexico's Environment Minister, Juan Rafael Elivra Quesada, on Thursday called on tourists to help maintain the environment during the Easter holidays which begin on Thursday for most Mexicans.

"In these days of leisure, tourists must show responsible behavior toward nature, helping with simple actions like not throwing trash out onto highways, streets, beaches, rivers and lakes," he said in a statement.

He also recommended not wasting water, switching off devices that are not being used, reducing the use of cars and putting out bonfires and avoiding throwing away cigarette ends.

According to the Environment Ministry, cigarette ends spark 10 percent of forest fires.

Elvira also defended the government's water treatment program, saying that the federal government had 92 waste water treatment plants in the nation and it had recently refurbished 13 of them, which had been out of operation.

NGOs have signaled that poor waste water treatment was posing a significant health hazard at Mexican beaches, citing data showing that one beach -- Acuario close to the City of Veracruz on the east coast -- had bacteria levels more than 1,200 times of those deemed acceptable by the World Health Organization.

The government, however, said that all of the beaches that it monitored had safe bacteria levels as of March 31.

On Thursday, Elvira also called on tourists to support the state-backed so-called 3R program -- reduce, reuse, recycle -- in order to produce less waste.

(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2009)