Do tours in caves ruin them forever?

Today we walked up the street from our accommodation to the Chiang Dao Caves - this is one of the ‘must see’ places when visiting the Chiang Mai / Chiang Dao region.
We love caves and find them fascinating, so we were very excited to see this network of caves. We had read all about them in blogs before going and had very high expectations, but once we were there our feelings about it all changed.
While the setting was lovely and the caves were impressive, we quickly felt sad about how this beautiful location was being managed.
Some information about visiting the Chiang Dao caves:
It cost 40 baht to gain entry to the caves, for this price you can walk in 2 chambers and see the temples. We would advise bringing a high powered torch as the cave ceilings are quite high and the lighting is not adequate or well positioned. You can pay 200 baht per person to go on a 30 minute tour which takes you on a loop through 3 other chambers. This tour is in groups, so pot luck as to how many people go with you. The guide takes a kerosene lamp. We’ve heard that it is not safety regulated in anyway. Old blog posts indicate that you can go through these 3 chambers without a guide if you bring your own torch but that is not the case anymore and they will not allow anyone to go into the caves without a guide.
TRAVEL VLOG 83
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[@99MrJ99]

Hmm when I went back in 2012 it was actually quite well taken care of. A friend and I went in that cave area where the sign says no entry long time ago, there was no sign back then. The cave goes way the heck down we almost got lost, many bats lol. would of been good to have ropes for it.

[@AprilandTimTravel]

That would have been awesome, if not a little nerve wracking! We are always interested to hear what travel was like to these sorts of places before we had a chance to see them. Cheers for the info 👍

[@booksmaps]

Thanks for the video, and especially the honesty...

[@mrnoodles8407]

Farangs...

[@diannehoppo4264]

I would not like to use the kerosene lamp the damage is irreparable thanks for being honest.