I got an email today from Charles Mango of Amazon Yarapa River Lodge that I thought was well worth spreading the word about. When I asked permission to post his email on my blog he sent me even more information about saving the Amazon Rainforest and his involvement in Peru. He needs publicity to help his efforts, so please spread the word. This is important stuff! Here’s what he wrote:
“Recently I have established the first conservation agreement in the Amazon area. This is the first effort of its kind in the Amazon basin. This includes the three villages along the Yarapa as well as the Dept. of Agriculture and INRENA. We now have the entire Yarapa from its mouth to the village of Puerto Miguel under this agreement. No commercial fishing or hunting, and no logging. Also, preservation of the riparian edge of the river and the local flora and fauna. This area runs both sides of the river from its mouth to the lands held by Puerto Miguel. This is about 35 miles or river.
In Feb. of this year the villages united were able to seize a shipment of illegal logs as well as arrest the loggers. This was the first time that villagers were able to stop illegal logging in the Amazon.They were supported be the Agriculture minister in their actions. To establish the legal right to defend their property, I first established titular title for the villages. In return I asked that we establish this Yarapa preserve as well as sign the agreement. This agreement was signed Jan. 10th, 2007 in the village of Puerto Miguel.
We are miles ahead of Brazil in trying to save the rainforest. Their recent article in National Geographic stated that they are trying to repopulate the Amazon with indigenous people in the hope that they would stop the loggers and poachers. If the government will support the local people at the expense of big money from the loggers was not answered. The people were removed from the land by or with government help to allow the logging industry to gain a foothold in the area. What I have done in Peru is to get the government and the people together as a force to protect the area. Unfortunately there has been no publicity about this project.”
His original email was to tell me about improvements in the lodge and a new educational laboratory center. He wrote:
“We continue to actively work with the nearby villages and the government of Peru to ensure the growth of the Yarapa River Reserve. Recently, we purchased the deeds to the land of the individual villages from the Peruvian government and gave it back to the villages for them to manage. In return, the village chiefs have pledged to work with us to discourage commercial fishing, logging, and poaching. In addition, the villages have recommitted their enthusiasm to work with INRENA (Peruvian parks department) to create and maintain a national park status reserve.
We continue to look for ways to improve our lodge. We plan to add another solar panel system. We already are running about 90% solar and would like to make this as close to 100% as possible. We are opening the Cornell University Esbaran laboratory to any university, college, or advanced high school that would like to come down for a research project or field trip. Our laboratory director, Dr. Eloy Rodriguez, is now marketing the field lab as a wonderful facility in a world-class environment. We pride ourselves on having the best guides in the area and continue to treat and respect our workers as we do our guests.”
Conservation and Ecotourism go hand in hand and kudos to Charles Mango for what he is doing in Peru. Please spread the word!
Saving the Amazon Rainforest in Peru…Amazon Yarapa River Lodge
/in Eco Lodges and Conservation sites, Ecotourism/by Lise TyrrellI got an email today from Charles Mango of Amazon Yarapa River Lodge that I thought was well worth spreading the word about. When I asked permission to post his email on my blog he sent me even more information about saving the Amazon Rainforest and his involvement in Peru. He needs publicity to help his efforts, so please spread the word. This is important stuff! Here’s what he wrote:
“Recently I have established the first conservation agreement in the Amazon area. This is the first effort of its kind in the Amazon basin. This includes the three villages along the Yarapa as well as the Dept. of Agriculture and INRENA. We now have the entire Yarapa from its mouth to the village of Puerto Miguel under this agreement. No commercial fishing or hunting, and no logging. Also, preservation of the riparian edge of the river and the local flora and fauna. This area runs both sides of the river from its mouth to the lands held by Puerto Miguel. This is about 35 miles or river.
In Feb. of this year the villages united were able to seize a shipment of illegal logs as well as arrest the loggers. This was the first time that villagers were able to stop illegal logging in the Amazon.They were supported be the Agriculture minister in their actions. To establish the legal right to defend their property, I first established titular title for the villages. In return I asked that we establish this Yarapa preserve as well as sign the agreement. This agreement was signed Jan. 10th, 2007 in the village of Puerto Miguel.
We are miles ahead of Brazil in trying to save the rainforest. Their recent article in National Geographic stated that they are trying to repopulate the Amazon with indigenous people in the hope that they would stop the loggers and poachers. If the government will support the local people at the expense of big money from the loggers was not answered. The people were removed from the land by or with government help to allow the logging industry to gain a foothold in the area. What I have done in Peru is to get the government and the people together as a force to protect the area. Unfortunately there has been no publicity about this project.”
His original email was to tell me about improvements in the lodge and a new educational laboratory center. He wrote:
“We continue to actively work with the nearby villages and the government of Peru to ensure the growth of the Yarapa River Reserve. Recently, we purchased the deeds to the land of the individual villages from the Peruvian government and gave it back to the villages for them to manage. In return, the village chiefs have pledged to work with us to discourage commercial fishing, logging, and poaching. In addition, the villages have recommitted their enthusiasm to work with INRENA (Peruvian parks department) to create and maintain a national park status reserve.
We continue to look for ways to improve our lodge. We plan to add another solar panel system. We already are running about 90% solar and would like to make this as close to 100% as possible. We are opening the Cornell University Esbaran laboratory to any university, college, or advanced high school that would like to come down for a research project or field trip. Our laboratory director, Dr. Eloy Rodriguez, is now marketing the field lab as a wonderful facility in a world-class environment. We pride ourselves on having the best guides in the area and continue to treat and respect our workers as we do our guests.”
Conservation and Ecotourism go hand in hand and kudos to Charles Mango for what he is doing in Peru. Please spread the word!
Defining Ecotourism Lodging
/in Ecotourism/by Lise TyrrellI have been working on my directory for almost 4 years now. My habit has been to look at each eco lodge on an individual basis to see whether I consider them as promoting sustainable tourism. If I do, they get added to the directory. I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t as discerning when I first started this directory and now need a way to go back and weed some of these lodges out. I’m finally at a point where I think it would be beneficial to have some type of questionnaire for each lodge, more of a definition of what an eco lodge is. So, I need a quantifiable way to define ecotourism lodging. I don’t want to re-invent the wheel, so I am looking at different websites and questionnaires. I’d like something that can be quantified by a yes or no answer. For example, do you have an organic garden? Do you employ local staff? Do you have local staff in management? In this way I could have some kind of numbering system (actually I’m looking at a butterfly system, but that’s for another blog) where you get 1 point if you’re trying to be eco but haven’t quite suceeded and you’d get the top number of points if you’ve attained true eco lodging.
Green Globe 21 has an extensive evaluation process and I laud that, but for my purposes I need something simpler (and less expensive). If you have any ideas of good questions that can be answered by a yes or no, please feel free to post them here or email them to me through my website http://www.eco-tropicalresorts.com. Sorry, I didn’t want to put my email here as I’ve already got enough of a problem with spam!
Some of the yes/no questions might need further comments. Like: Do you use alternative energy sources? And then ask what kind they use. Of course, one of my goals is to visit all the eco lodges on the directory to get a first hand view. I’m a trusting soul and tend to believe lodges when they tell me that they practice sustainable travel, but once or twice another lodge in the same country has emailed me that they really didn’t. That is very disappointing to me but enforces my desire to see first hand.Â
My goal is to start with Mexico this winter. I live in Northern California and Mexico will be the least expensive place for me to start. There is a cluster of 3-5 eco lodges relatively close to each other. I find this prospect really exciting as I learn more and more. Of course, I will blog about each lodge as I visit them!Â
Sam Veasna Center for Wildlife Conservation
/in Eco Lodges and Conservation sites/by Lise TyrrellI’ve just added Tmatboey Ecotourism Project in Cambodia to the directory. This is really a special place because it is being helped by the Sam Veasna Center for Wildlife Conservation. Their mission from their site (SVC):
The SVC opened in January 2003, and since 2004 has been developing activities to promote wildlife conservation, including:
Ensure support for Community Funds: Visitors who come to see the birds leave a conservation contribution which goes into a local development fund directed towards various projects such as community development, agricultural assistance and fish ponds.Â
As an off-shoot of our programs, SVC has been taking interested groups and individuals to see birds, either around Siem Reap area for half a day, or to more remote locations to see several endangered and threatened species, on trips lasting from one day to over one week. This new eco tourism endeavor is in partnership with Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia Program (WCS), an international NGO devoted to protecting wildlife around the world, and the rural communities living in the less-accessible birding sites.
I thought the Sam Veasna Center for Wildlife Conservation deserved separate mention in this blog because they are what ecotourism is really about…preserving our wildlife and eco-systems.
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The Many Different Kinds of Eco Lodges
/in Ecotourism/by Lise TyrrellAt this point I have added well over 300 eco lodges to the site. They are so varied and present themselves in so many different ways I think it’s hard to think of them all in one breath, and yet they’re all on this site.  There seem to be two main types of eco lodges with many shades in between.
There’s the boutique eco resort, which caters to people wanting to be pampered and surrounded by luxury. They’re often quite pricey as a consequence. The impression I get is that they were built to make a nice profit albeit still promote “green” tourism. There are many of these on this site and yet it is the other type of eco lodge that I get excited about finding.
These are the ones that might start out as someone’s dream of making a difference, or they could be a non-profit that is buying up land to preserve it and as an extension, offers lodging. Most of the time, they are not luxury accommodations. Instead they are more basic and less intrusive on the environment.
In Dominica recently there was a big misunderstanding that thankfully got resolved in a very commendable way. 3 Rivers Dominica (http://www.3riversdominica.com/) is one of those types of lodges that is someone’s dream of a better world. One of their accommodations is in a tree house quite a ways from the main lodge. It is very basic and yet allows someone to really experience nature. The Dominican Tourism Department is very involved in having standards for tourism and in their eyes this tree hut didn’t meet those requirements. They took the time to understand that ecotourism can be a very different kettle of fish and have reached a compromise for 3 Rivers Dominica that will enable the owner, Jem, to continue with his dream. Of course there is more to the story but in the interest of brevity I just hit the highlights. I think what occurred in Dominica is a very hopeful sign that rustic eco lodges trying to impact the environment as little as possible are becoming more mainstream.Â
Kudos to Dominica and to 3 Rivers Dominica for pioneering the way!Â
Socially Responsible Alternatives
/in Eco Alternatives/by Lise TyrrellWe have choices in the kinds of hotels/lodges that we stay in. We can stay in places that impact the environment as little as possible or we can choose high impact hotels. The same holds true for many other areas of life.
My brother runs The Social Equity Group based in the San Francisco Bay area of northern California. He and the people who work with him are financial planners/managers whose investments reach beyond purely financial goals to address ethical concerns. This is a way of making a difference with your financial investments. To learn more about what they do, you can go to http://www.socialequity.com.
My son’s Sudbury school is very aware of choices. They’ve been making some upgrades on the school building and in that process have sought out ways to do this that will not negativelly impact the environment. They have a great recycling program and re use items in very creative ways. Now if only all schools would make those same choices.
There are many alternatives out there and it’s up to us to make the right choices.
Butterfly Festival at Domitila Private Wildlife Reserve in Nicaragua
/in Eco Lodges and Conservation sites/by Lise TyrrellI received a flyer about an upcoming series of events to view, observe and photograph neotropical butterlies in their natural habitat. The event is conducted by Jean Michael Maes Ph.D and Eric Van Den Berghe Ph.D.
Dates:
June 15 to June 21, 2007
June 30 to July 6, 2007
July 13 to July 19, 2007
July 28 to August 3, 2007
August 11 to August 18, 2007
For information and reservations please contact: [email protected] or visit their website at http://www.domitila.org. This eco lodge was recently added to Eco Tropical Resorts and is much more than just a lodge. Take a look at their site on my Ecotourism lodge directory and also view the guest comments to get a feel as to what they’re about at http://www.eco-tropicalresorts.com/centralamerica/nicaragua.htm.Â
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The event takes place at the Domitila Private Wildlife Reserve in Nicaragua. To go directly to their website: http://www.domitila.org/english/index.htmlÂ
Kuna Yala Island Adventure in The San Blas Islands of Panama
/in Eco Lodges and Conservation sites/by Lise TyrrellA friend is spending two months down in Panama in various areas. He just got back from visiting the San Blas Islands off Panama a couple of weeks ago. While there he had a wonderful time and wanted me to include the place he stayed in my Ecotourism Lodge Directlory. The only problem is that the man who runs it doesn’t have a website for his eco homestay, so I thought I’d add it to my blog. Following is my friends description:
Elias Perez Martinez is a Kuna Indian who was educated in Panama City and the United States. He is the principal of the elementary school on Isla Corbiski, Kuna Yala, Panama; the San Blas Islands. He has opened a different type of hostel in a Kuna village. His idea is to provide an experience for tourists by living in a Kuna Village and seeing the day to day life of the Kuna.Accomodations are basic, for example the ‘shower’ is a barrel of rain water and a bucket, but his wife Soby and her family keep the place neat and tidy and provide food and will do you laundry if you are there for more than a week.
His rates are US$25-US$35/day, which includes three meals and daily excursions to other islands for swimming, or to Carti to visit a larger villiage and see the Kuna museum. You can also take, for a small fee for the gasoline, trips to the main land to visit the rain forest. Elias is also a Kayak guide and hopes to provide camping in the future.
If you want to experience life in a Kuna Village I highly recommend this. I stayed for two weeks and enjoyed it all.
You can contact Elias by phone (507) 6708-5254 in Panama, or email [email protected] or [email protected] or you can book through (and pay by credit card) Ancon Expeditions http://www.anconexpeditions.com/ in Panama City. Elias also guides for Ancon.
I’d really like to see Elias make a go of this as he is a wonderful person and really wants to protect Kuna culture and at the same time provide more services for tourists. Most people who go to the San Blas Islands stay at places where the Kuna are only curiosities.
I contacted Ancon Expeditions and you have to mention this place specifically if you want to book here. Your best bet will probably be to email Elias for further information.
Extending the concept of ecotourism lodging
/in Ecotourism/by Lise TyrrellI’ve just added Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize to Eco Tropical Resorts. The sanctuary is located in Belize, Central America. This is a new kind of listing as their focus is an environmental education center that offers experiential learning programs and training opportunities while serving as a model of conservation land stewardship. They also have a Wildlife Rehab Center where they care for wildlife with the hope of returning the animals into the wild. The Sanctuary consists of 1,070 acres of tropical forest, riverine and savanna habitats.
Their lodging facilities are an adjunct to their real purpose of land and animal stewardship. They offer all kinds of lodging from camping, a bunkhouse, private rooms, and homestays. The homestays are with local families which helps involve the community in what they’re doing.
I think eco-tourism includes Wildlife Sanctuaries and Parks, working on ways to maintain habitat for wildlife and preserve nature for the future. I don’t know about anyone else, but I really want to visit Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. I used to do Wildlife Rehab in Northern California and loved rasing baby squirrels and birds. My sister is a biologist and I’m thinking this might be perfect for a little family get together.
If you want to go see what I’m talking about, here is their url:Â http://www.monkeybaybelize.org
Nigerian president pushes for Ecotourism
/in Ecotourism/by Lise TyrrellI am constantly looking for eco lodges in the Tropics that have websites so that I can add them to my directory. Nigeria is one country that I have not yet been able to find one in. I was heartened when I read about the following:
At the 11th Africa Travel Association conference held recently, President Olusegun Obasanjo talked about attracting funding from the private sector for ecotourism. He stated that: “There are 1,129 Forest Reserves, 29 Game Reserves, 4 Game Sanctuaries and seven national parks spread across the length and breadth of Nigeria.” The country is ripe for green travel.
Ecotourism is a way for poor countries to attract tourist dollars and help preserve the environment at the same time. I’m hoping this outlook by the president of Nigeria will help promote eco-tourism for this African country.
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India Homestays
/in Homestay/by Lise TyrrellWhen I read different posts and writings about ecotourism I have yet to read anything about India Homestays. It seems to me that they are probably a type of accommodation that has the least impact on the environment. For one, they are already there because it is a home that is opened up for visitors so no building occurs. Because it is a home, they can only accommodate small numbers, again less intrusive on the environment. They help the indigenous population because it is people of that country that open up their homes. Most of the Homestays in the directory offer local organic meals and are very conscious of the environment, another plus.
All of the Homestays on Eco Tropical Resorts are located in India. I have been contacted by so many of them. In fact, today I added two new India Homestays. Perhaps other countries can follow suit or maybe they are and I am just not aware of them. If you know of any other countries that offer Homestays, please let me know via posting here on my blog or emailing me at eco @ eco-tropicalresorts.com. Do remove the spaces in the email.