Photo of the Day: Dec. 16, 2011

Authored by:John Converse Townsend

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Posted December 16th, 2011

Two female "enviropreneurs" unload crate of saplings from a pickup truck in Nicaragua'ss La Flor Wildlife Refuge. These environmental stewards work with Paso Pacifico's Environmental Learning, Leadership, Adventure, and Stewardship Initiative (ELLAS), and are hoping to avert (and reverse) large-scale environmental destruction in the coastal and marine protected area.

Nicaragua's Pacific slope — home to mangroves, turtle nesting beaches, and coral reefs — is slated for rapid development on a massive scale. In 2006, The New York Times dubbed Nicaragua “the next Costa Rica.” Recently US News & World Report named Rivas one of the top places “to realize the adventure-filled retirement of your dreams.”

Recent approval of a coastal highway connecting Costa Rica's Guanacaste province to Rivas and the La Flor protected area, and 81 commercial development projects planned or underway, means skyrocketing demand for coastal properties and extreme pressure on locals to sell their land, abandoning traditional farms and fisheries.
 
ELLAS embraces the potential for economic development in the region, and seeks to avoid the traditional pitfalls of commercial expansion in the developing world: erosion, watershed degradation, the cyclical poverty of low-paying tourism jobs and increased pressure on young women to enter the sex trade.

In Feburary 2011, ELLAS was honored as a winner in the Changemakers Places on the Edge geotourism challenge.

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