‘El turismo fomentó el empleo y los ingresos’ 7/27/2007

‘El turismo fomentó el empleo y los ingresos’ 7/27/2007
Redacción Sociedad¿De qué forma contribuyó el impulso del turismo en el desarrollo de Colombia?El turismo se convirtió en una herramienta para generar ingresos, concertar sobre los recursos naturales y reducir la pobreza.¿A qué se refiere cuando habla de una herramienta?Desde 1999 creció el turismo. En el 2004 tuvimos 800 000 extranjeros, el turismo receptivo creció en 7,7 por ciento y representó el 2,4 del PIB. Esto lo volvió una herramienta para consolidar proyectos, generar empleo y crear cadenas productivas.¿Cómo se regula esto?Tenemos una Ley de Turismo, la 300 de 1996, que da las disposiciones. La entidad de la política pública es el Ministerio de Industria, Comercio y Turismo y se creó un Viceministerio de Turismo.¿Cómo funciona el turismo comunitario?No solo participa el Ministerio del ramo sino el de Ambiente, Vivienda y Desarrollo Territorial, a través del sistema de parques. Tiene 51 áreas protegidas, de las cuales 28 tienen infraestructura para ecoturismo. El de Cultura se encarga del turismo histórico y cultural. Y el de Agricultura promueve el agroturismo.¿Cómo se promueve esto?La legislación establece cuatro ramas de turismo: ecoturismo, agroturismo, etnoturismo y acuaturismo. Los prestadores de servicio que hacen ecoturismo tienen un descuento del 20 por ciento en el Impuesto a la Renta. En lugares que no hay infraestructura los ministerios de Vivienda y de Turismo entregan un subsidio de vivienda para que las personas adecúen un espacio de su casa para recibir turistas. En el 2004 se beneficiaron 472 familias. ¿Cómo se enfrenta el tema de la seguridad?Colombia por el conflicto armado generó inseguridad y para enfrentarlo se desarrolló una estrategia que se llama Vive Colombia viaja por ella, acompañada de las caravanas de turismo. Con apoyo de la Policía se viaja en caravana para que la gente pueda transitar y hacer turismo.¿Qué ventajas y desventajas existen con Ecuador?En Colombia no tenemos una línea específica de turismo comunitario como sí ocurre en el Ecuador, respecto a políticas públicas, en eso nos llevan ventaja. Ustedes pudieran tomar la experiencia de los incentivos tributarios, asistencia técnica y podríamos favorecernos mutuamente.

Week 8

Week 8

July 20, 2007

Margaret Novak

So far, this week has been pretty interesting once again. A couple of men came in on Monday to talk about a new organization in Rio Morona. Manuel (from Kuamar), Rafael (from Santa Ines), and Orlando (from Macas) all have communities that work with Ecotrackers. However, now they will all join together in order to create a strong organization to protect the environment, the biodiversity, and the cultural diversity of the Orient. This is of utmost importance, as right now the petroleum internationals are trying to take over and destroy the region.

I have spent the past few days working on a new poster project that we are going to hang up in the office. I am taking the 8 best pictures from the Coast (including the Galapagos), the 8 best pictures from the Andes, and the 8 best pictures from the Orient (including the Amazon River) and combining them into a giant collage. I have a certain passion for photography, so it has been really fun going through all of out pictures and picking out which ones to use for the poster. I have it all laid out now, I am just waiting for a couple from the Galapagos!

Speaking of which, my cousin came into town this week and decided that she will visit her friend working with the Peace Corps over in the Galapagos. I brought this up to Max, and now I will be accompanying her to do some research for Ecotrackers! I am so excited; this will be an awesome experience!! I am going to be looking into how we can create an Information and Interpretation Center on the island of Santa Cruz. Here, we will post information about local species and environmental problems that face the Galapagos as well as other places throughout the world. I will also be taking many pictures to document the experience and to create posters of various species. I am so excited!!

Week 7

July 19, 2007
Week 7
Margaret Novak
Click here for more pictures!

Last week was yet another interesting experience!! Throughout the week I worked on the Ecotrackers web page as well as numerous web blogs. I corrected some of the English writings as well as translated some Spanish writing into English. I also had numerous talks with Max and various other people that came into the office, and I learned much about the problems that affect Ecuador and the people that live here. For example, I learned of the negative affect that technology can have on a village. Cell phones were recently introduced into a town called Atacames. Before cell phones, people got along alright, but now, they feel as if they are a necessity. However, cell phones cost money, and the people there don´t have that extra money. Therefore, girls at the age of 12 and 13 want cell phones, and so they go into prostitution. Now, there are 12 and 13 year olds pregnant and sick just because they want cell phones. This is an extremely sad thing to have happen to community, and something must be done to put a stop to it. We talked about creating an education program that offers information on sexual health. I think that this would be extremely helpful to the community in Atacames.

Over the weekend, Max, Inti (who is originally from Otavalo, but he now teaches at a University in Australia), and I went on a trip to a community near Chimborazo. The bus ride to Riobamba took about 4 hours; we got there around noon and went directly to the large open air market. Apparently, Riobamba is the largest produce market in Ecuador. There were fruits and vegetables of every kina; there were about 25 different kinds of bananas at one stand! It was really neat to walk around and see all of the different produce. I learned which ones were native to Ecuador and which ones were not. I learned much about the extinction of various plant species due to genetic breeding; about 10 species of plants go into extinction every single day just due to farming practices. We ate at the market, and then continued on our way to the community that we were supposed to meet with, called The New Generation. However, once we got to where we were supposed to be, no one knew of the community. We couldn´t find it, and unfortunately we had no way to contact them. So, Max called a man named Baltazar, who lives in a community very near to where we were. Baltazar came into Ecotrackers about a month ago with two volunteers from Switzerland to talk about a community ecotourism project that would involve reforestation and organic gardening. The community was recently certified to grow organic produce, which is a very positive thing. Now that they won’t have to worry about chemicals leaking into their water sources and it will be much better for the Earth. It turned out that the Swiss girls were leaving the following day, so we had a community meeting that night to talk about the continuation of their project with Ecotrackers. We all gathered in a small building with a dirt floor, and had cake and tea that the Swiss girls had made for their last night, which was quite nice. It was very interesting to hear about how such a project is formed; we talked about how the community, their environment, and Ecotrackers would all interact to create a successful project. After the meeting, we went to sleep in one of Baltazar´s families´ homes. They fed us a good meal of soup and tea and we then went to bed. We woke up early the following morning so that we would be able to walk up to the Mirador (lookout), a lookout above the community, where you can see 5 different volcanoes. It was cloudy and rainy, so we only got a glimpse of Chimborazo, but it was still a breathtaking view. The wild wheat fields, the bright purple flowers, and the rolling mountains were gorgeous. We also crossed over the ancient Inca Trail, which was awesome. It is so cool to think that this trail has been there for hundreds and hundreds of years. We hiked back down (there isn´t much oxygen up there, so it was a little hard to breathe…), and then made our way back into Quito. It was a great experience, and one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen! I think that the project will be very successful because not only is it a beautiful place with wonderfully nice people, but it is also quite near a railroad, the Pan-American Highway, and the Incan Trail. I think that with this new project, they will be able to preserve their culture and their environment while bringing more opportunities to their people.

Week 6

Week 6

July 9, 2007

Margaret Novak

We got back into Quito early on Monday morning. We spent most of Monday organizing and catching up on things. I translated the statutes of Ecodivers and Econavigators into English and we discussed the creation of a new webpage for the organization. I spent the rest of the week working on the new webpage. We decided to use a blog for now, as it is free and works just as well. This included writing about my experiences, uploading pictures from our trip, loading the videos from our trip onto Youtube so that they could be used on the webpage, and organizing the layout. I also created my own personal blog this week, with links to various pieces of work that I have translated, blogs with my experiences on them, and other sites that I currently deem important.

The other day, two people came in to talk about a new project in a town near Chimborazo. They want to bring in volunteers to help with reforestation, environmental protection, English courses, and cultural preservation. It was really interesting to see how such a project is planned. We talked about how the community, the environment, and Ecotrackers would all play a part in the project. We are will probably visit this site next Saturday in order to check out the location and set up the next step.

This past week, we also made a calendar for what we will be doing for the next two months. It looks like I will be going on a cloud forest expedition from the Andes to the coast, and also an Amazon River trip over to Peru in August.

On Saturday, I went to the Cotopaxi National Park with my Uncle and my cousin. It was a lot of fun! We drove up as far as we could, and then started to hike, but we didn´t make it all the way as there was barely any oxygen up there and I found it hard to breathe. We then had a picnic by the lake, which was really nice. I am so glad that the clouds blew off, so that I could get some great pictures of the volcano! I would definitely recommend this excursion to anyone, it was just beautiful!!

Week 4

July 6, 2007

With all of the excitement going on in week 5, I seemed to have forgotten to write about week 4. Let´s see, week 4 was slightly uneventful because I still had a bit of the gripe (flu). I stayed home one day from work, and the other days I just tried to hang in there. However, by the time the weekend rolled around, luckily I was feeling much better. Friday night, I went to a salsa concert with Claire (Australia), Marco (Germany), Barbara (Holland), and Antonella (Ecuador). The concert was a lot of fun! There were bands from Ecuador, Colombia, and Cuba. The music was great, and everyone in the crowd was dancing all night long. It´s too bad that we gringos don´t really know how to dance, especially to the salsa. I ended up spending the night at the Ecotrackers apartments with everyone else as we got home around 1:00 am, and the buses don´t go that late back to Pifo.

The next morning, Claire and I decided to go on an adventure. We set out for the Incan sun festival, Inti Raymi. We took the bus over to Pifo (they were working on the bridge in Tumbaco, so this took about 2 hours) and then hung out with my family for a while. After a few drinks, we got on the bus to Otavalo, as we planned to spend the night there. However, for some reason we both feel asleep and didn´t wake up until we reached Ibarra, a town about an hour north of where we wanted to be. Of course there were no more buses back to Otavalo that night, as it was almost 10:00pm. So, we managed to share a cab with a local lady and we made it a hostal. From there, we used the trusty Lonely Planet and made our way to Café Arte, where we watched Andean bands play music while we had something to eat. The music was wonderful (I love the flutes!), and we had a great time.

The next morning, we took the bus to Cotacachi, the town that was having the festival that day. When we got there, people were beginning to gather in the park in front of the church. It was really fun to watch as the day went on. There were groups of native people dressed up with chaps made of llama fur and very large hats, and each group chased the one in front of it around the square. There were tons of police to make sure that the groups didn´t run into each other. It was very loud with whistling and chanting, and everyone was having a great time. Then, all of a sudden, the crowd started running like crazy. W e assumed a fight broke out, so everyone was stampeding, but then we realized that it was more than that- the police had set off tear gas. It hit us; our eyes were blinded and we coulnd´t breathe very well. We ran into a side street to try to escape the gas, and we found a bench to recover on. That stuff can really burn your throat!! The natives thought it was funny to see us gringas get tear gassed, because we had no idea it was coming, and obviously they had known it was inevitable, so we had to pose for a few pictures. After that, we decided it was time to head home. So, we hopped on a bus to Otavalo, where we hoped to catch another bus back to Pifo. Unfortunately, the last bus to Pifo had left just before we got there. So, we had to detour all the way back to Quito, adding another 2 hour bus ride to the trip. And then, the bus decided to drive around the entire city of Quito and enter through the south side (we were coming form the north)….. I ended up getting home around 7:30 that night, and as I was walking down the hill to my Uncles house, a crazed poodle attacked me and I got bit on the leg. What a way to end a crazy weekend. We had a great time though, and it was quite an experience!!!!

Week 5 in Salango

July 3, 2007

Margaret Novak

This past week was awesome!! We went down to a coastal town called Salango to create a new scuba project. The idea of this project is to offer scuba classes to people in the local community so that they will be able to have an opportunity

to develop ecotourism as an alternative to their current fishing industry. The system works because volunteers pay the locals for room and board, and then they can use that money to pay for the scuba equipment. For example, we paid the amount of money it took for them to rent the equipment (the instruction was free thanks to our dive instructor, Peter) and in turn we had someplace to sleep and 3 great meals every day.

We (Max, Veronica, Dominica (Ecotrackers), Mario (Swiss student) and I) left Quito Monday night at about 10:30 pm. The bus ride to Salango took about 15 hours total, so we finally made it to Salango around 1:00pm on Tuesday. We arrived at the community museum, and set ourselves up in these little cabanas right on the beach; they were really cute and also quite comfortable with two beds in each room. As soon as we got there, we met our scuba instructors- Peter (a dive instructor from the Galapagos) and Suzanne (an assistant scuba instructor and a professor at the University of Delaware). We also met the six local boys from Salango that were taking the scuba course with us. We started our classes right away and watched various educational slideshows on Peter’s computer. It was really interesting to learn about scuba diving as I didn’t know anything about it before hand.

After class, we went to eat dinner in the little restaurant owned by some of the people taking scuba classes with us. All of the food was really good; we got to eat a lot of seafood, which I love. We also ate a lot of fried bananas and rice. Later on, Mario and I went to the beach and I found all sorts of cool shells, including the infamous spondylus shell, which used to be used as a form of money in Salango 5,000 years ago.

The next day we had another scuba class and then we went out on the boat for some real practice. We learned how to set up all of our equipment and then headed into the water. It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be; I was pretty warm with the wetsuit on. I didn’t think that I would be nervous scuba diving, but after I got under the water, I realized that it kind of scary to be breathing underwater. However, it was also very exciting!! On our first dive, we just kind of got used to the water and our equipment. The locals boys learned their PADI skills with Peter while Mario and I just swam around and looked at cool stuff on the bottom of the ocean floor. It was kind of cloudy out, so the boat ride home was a bit cold, and everything in the boat got wet and salty (including Mario´s towel, which was completely soaked and smelled of fish….) We changed on the boat, and it was impossible to get the wet suit off, I had to have some help!! Those things can really stick! When we got back, we all went to eat dinner and just hang out.

The next day, we had class again, and then went out for our next dive. This time, we went to a different part of La Isla Salango and we dove much deeper (about 10 meters/30 feet). We saw all sorts of exotic animals including manta rays, sea cucumbers, star fish, sea urchins, tropical fish, a tiger snake eel, white coral, and one of the guys claimed that he saw an octopus. This time down, Mario and I practiced our emergency ascents and other skills, such as how to breathe from your buddy’s regulator. I will admit that I was pretty nervous for the first 5 minutes that I was 30 feet underwater because it is hard to imagine what you would do if all of a sudden you didn’t have air, but after we practiced what to do in such an event, and then I felt much better. We swam for quite a long time, and then got back to the main land at about 3:00 pm. We ate lunch and then went into Puerto Lopez to return our equipment. In Puerto Lopez (only about 5 or 10 minutes from Salango), we hung out for a while and ate dinner. Then, Mario, Peter, Susana, and I went to a little bar called La Playa and drank some caipariñas near the beach. It was a good time, and we even managed to create a whale costume out of a gray dress for Mario to wear to the whale festival the next day.

The next morning, it was time to study for our final exam. We had one last class and then we got our PADI books and started to review for our certification. We all went to the beach to study because the sun was finally out. At this point in time, we not only studied for our certification, but we also finalized the plans of our new international organization called Ecobuzos y Econavigantes (Ecodivers and Econavigators). It was really interesting to see how an organization can be created with just a group of people and an idea. Max jotted down notes while we all discussed the statutes of the organization. After a couple hours, we had decided that the organization will have different locations throughout the world that will offer environmentally friendly water activities, such as scuba diving, to members, volunteers, and people of the local communities in order to create more opportunities for those local communities. After we had created a concrete plan, Max typed up the proposal for Ecodivers and Econavigators. Then, we all went back into Puerto Lopez for the whale festival. It was really fun! Everyone was dancing in the streets and celebrating whale season.

The next day, Mieke, a volunteer from Belgium, and I went on a tour to La Isla de la Plata (The Poor Man’s Galapagos) and it was awesome! We saw humpback whales on the way and on the way back while on the boat. That was cool. The island is part of the Machalilla National Park. It is protected, and therefore had the most amazing assortment of nesting birds. We saw the blue footed booby, the nazca booby, friggots, and we even saw an albatross!! The birds were so used to friendly humans that they weren’t scared at all and we could get within feet of them. We also saw some type of small snake while on the island.

After we got back, we met up with Peter, Susana, and Mario, who went scuba diving again that day. I am a little jealous as they saw sea turtles, but I also had a blast, so it worked out. We ate dinner and hung out at a bar called Clandestine near the beach for a while. That night, Mario and I slept at the house that Mieke was staying at (owned by one of the guys that took the course with us) as the cabanas at the museum were being taken over by students from the University of Florida. The house was quite nice, and we had comfortable beds to sleep in.

The next day, Mario and I headed back to Puerto Lopez as we had to get our pictures taken for our dive certification. We hung out and shopped a little bit (I had to buy a hammock) and then we settled down at the little restaurant called Spondylus again. Susanna and Peter didn’t get back until late, but we got to say goodbye. We got the bus at about 7pm and then the ride was only 10 hours back. (Why did it take 5 hours less on the way home??) We arrived in Quito at about 4:45 am and came back to the Ecotrackers office to sleep on the floor as Mario didn’t have the key to the apartment. So, now we are back, and I am missing the beach!! I had a wonderful time and I would definitely recommend this experience to anyone else!!!!!!!!

We are currently sending more volunteers down to Salango. Hopefully more of the local guys will be able to pay for the PADI certification with the money that the volunteers pay for room and board. That is one of the biggest problems that we are facing; the local people don’t have extra money for scuba certification and equipment, and scuba can be quite expensive. However, with more volunteers, more funding, and more organization of the project, they will be able to reach their goal of creating new scuba opportunities in the community. And with our new organization Ecodivers and Econavigators, we will be able to accomplish much in the development of sustainable water use and recreation throughout the entire world. I think that Ecodivers and Econavigators will be able to make a great difference, as I have already seen what is possible in the little town of Salango.

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PICTURES FROM OUR RECENT SCUBA COURSE IN SALANGO.
CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO OF HUMPBACK WHALES FROM OUR TRIP TO LA ISLA DE LA PLATA.