7 SELVA’s ecotourism development programme In 1998 the Methodist Relief and Development Fund (MRDF) financed a feasibility study

Box 8.7 SELVA’s ecotourism development programme In 1998 the Methodist Relief and Development Fund (MRDF) financed a feasibility study

of an ecotourism development programme for ten small communities in the Cosiguina Peninsula of Nicaragua – see map. The programme was devised by SELVA,* a local environmental organisation.

The study concluded that, despite the problems of this rural area – the lack of potable water, the lack of a sewage

HONDURAS

system outside the only town of El Viejo, the lack of electricity in most of the area’s 130 villages, the poor road system, lack of social infrastructure and the wide- spread and evident poverty of the area –

there were also significant potential e

Vol. Cosiguina

NICARAGUA

El Viejo

attractors to backpackers, adventurers and

Lake Managua n

nature tourists (Mowforth, 1998). These a

a c Managua

include the Cosiguina Volcano, acces- b ic

if

Lake b

sible by foot or horse, thermal waters,

Nicaragua i r

e a artesanal fishing, boat trips into the Gulf a

0 of Fonseca, a still relatively diverse 100

wildlife despite deforestation, and com- COSTA RICA pletely unused beaches and cliff shore-

km

lines. It also concluded that the development of tourist facilities should progress slowly in order to integrate local people into the programme as genuine beneficiaries and to avoid the creation of divisions between those involved in the programme and those not involved.

The Cosiguina Peninsula is an area not normally visited by tourists, other than Nicaraguans (mostly from the local area) during the Christmas and Easter holidays. There are no facilities in the area to cater for

foreign tourists.

Two years later the MRDF funded a two year programme for the construction of the necessary facilities on a small area of land owned by SELVA in the town of El Viejo, which would serve as the point of entry into the peninsula for any future visitors. At the

time of writing this programme is drawing to a close and the facilities now include a visitor centre offering accommodation for up to 16 people, an adjacent dining room and bar with all the appropriate equipment, and a toilet and shower block.

All these facilities are built in the local rancho style with palm-thatched roofs and cane walls lined with tule matting. The photograph shows the visitor rancho with the San Cristobal Volcano behind.

* SELVA: Somos Ecologistas en Lucha por la Vida y el Ambiente/We are ecologists struggling for life and the environment.

‘Hosts’ and destinations • 231

does not bring the proportion of the region’s population beneficially affected by the programme up to a significant level. The effect may be significant in individual terms or to a family, but as with many small-scale NGO-inspired schemes, it gives no signif- icant widespread response to the problem of poverty, even on the scale of a small region such as the Cosiguina Peninsula with a total population of about 80,000. Yet poverty alleviation is one of its principal stated aims.

In more than one of the selected villages, SELVA personnel have experienced diffi- culty in explaining to their contacts that the benefits of the scheme and involvement in it should extend beyond the immediate family and friends of the SELVA contact. In one particular village, the local ‘cacique’ or village head assumed that all persons involved should be members of his family and all others should be excluded. In another village, SELVA risked losing goodwill and interest by alienating a local village head

13111 who did not take kindly to the idea that as many villagers as possible should be involved. If the programme begins to show some signs of success, SELVA also risk converting themselves into a local elite, whom others will approach with deference. This is not their aim and to their credit it can be said that they are aware of the problem.

Another group of potential beneficiaries exists: that is, the national tour operators. Currently, they show only the vaguest signs of interest in SELVA’s programme, but if SELVA show any degree of success in their efforts to attract visitors to the area, then it has already been suggested by one of the most prominent Nicaraguan eco-tour operators that they would be interested in considering a deal with SELVA to provide ecotourists to use SELVA’s facilities. In such an eventuality, the new beneficiaries will be both the operators and SELVA, with a little more trickle-down to those already benefiting in this way. The question then would be whether the proportion of financial gains made by the operator(s) would be greater than the extra income created by the extra business brought in by the operators. At this stage and with the deliberately slow development of this programme, that question will remain unanswered for some years to come.

SELVA now faces the following issues and problems: How to attract visitors? How to promote the centre’s use as a springboard for visiting other points of interest and the ten villages in the peninsula? How to involve the local people in the centre’s use? (Local people were employed in its construction.) How and whether to turn themselves into a small-scale tourism micro-enterprise? How to ensure that the economic benefits of the activity can be used to improve the general quality of life in the area and to alleviate poverty?