Sustainable Ecotourism Seeds
Compost, Conservation, Community and Comfort
Street Address
Chugchilan - Sigchos Road
City
Chugchilan
State/Province
Cotopaxi
Postal/Zip Code
05-01-240
Country
Ecuador
Year innovation began
1995
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of tourism management and impact on the destination
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
Destination-stewardship business
Geographic location
Rural, Mountain.
Main insight addressed
Develop community assets
Name Your Project
Sustainable Ecotourism Seeds: Compost, Conservation, Community and Comfort
Describe Your Idea
What is the goal of your innovation?
Improving local community and natural environment while providing a comfortable, educational experience; and teaching about the area, local customs and Permaculture.
How does your approach support or embody geotourism?
Mission Statement and Vision:
Black Sheep Inn (BSI) aims to provide a comfortable, educational experience for guests, teaching about the local area, local customs and Permaculture, while contributing to and improving the local community and the natural environment. BSI’s goal is to be a leader in environmental stability and ecotourism.
Eco-Permaculture Features include: solar panels, adobe construction preserving traditional architecture, composting toilets, recycling, roof-water collectors, gray-water systems, organic gardens, community education and aid work, reforestation, and erosion control.
We moved to Chugchilán in 1994 with the goal of creating an affordable sustainable tourist destination. Before 1994, the village of Chugchilán was unknown by tourists, travelers, and agencies. There were no accommodations. Fourteen years later Chugchilán has preserved its cultural charm and has several community businesses that profit from sustainable tourism. Businesses include: horseback riding tours, women's knitting cooperative, 2 locally owned hostels and restaurants, local native guides, student folkdance troupe, transportation cooperative, Public Library/Computer Learning Center, and Recycling Center. Other improvements in the community since 1994 include: telephone service (both landlines and now Cellular), new health clinic, an ambulance, pavement in the plaza, new market, public park, over 200% more bus routes, and police station.
Describe your approach in detail. How is it innovative?
Quote-Ecotourism-Inspector, Arnaldo Rodriguez:
“Black-Sheep-Inn (BSI) is one of the most honest, grassroot lodges I’ve seen in Latin-America. A true example of sustainable tourism: environmentally-sound practices and installations, composting toilets, gray-water recycling, garbage separation and rain-catchments.
BSI shares business opportunities with locals, for instance advising visitors to use local guides, horses, transportation and bicycles, instead of having their own. Oddly enough, BSI encouraged locals to build their own lodges, even under the risk of competition. Owners of these lodges acknowledged that BSI was inspirational and always willing to share expertise.
Community-based ecotourism projects in Ecuador have failed because initiatives didn’t start in the communities, but were created by NGO’s or development agencies, which normally lack experience in tourism management. These initiatives focused efforts on building infrastructure and then left communities on their own, without any further training. In Chugchilán the model is different, because locals have the opportunity to learn from BSI’s experiences, developing products well designed for the target client, and most importantly, learning first-hand how to provide good service. I’ve been related with community-based tourism for several years and I can assure that Mama-Hilda and Cloud-Forest are amongst the best locally owned lodges in Ecuador, both in terms of infrastructure and service.”
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
Instead of private lodges individually seeking eco-certification, it would be advantageous to share best-practices and lessons-learned through a united ecotourism association. People mutually benefit when working together. The spirit and style of partnerships at BSI can be adapted to new locations.
Partnerships/donations to create Chugchilán’s Public Library/Computer Learning Center:
Tourists donated books, computers and money,
Foundation Room-to-Read donated hundreds of books,
Press Attaché US Embassy provided a shipping address,
Catholic Church gave library room and furniture,
Cloud Forest Hostel donated renovation materials,
BSI provided labor, technical support and librarian’s salary,
British School Quito annually gives computers, programs and tech-support.
In one sentence describe what kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Sustainable development takes time, patience and commitment: in one decade the village of Chugchilán is “On-the-Map” as a Geotourism tourist destination.
Describe the degree of success of your approach to date. Clearly define how you measure quantitative and qualitative impact in terms of how your approach contributes to the sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How does your approach minimize negative impacts? 200 words or less
BSI offers best-practice examples: composting toilets, water conservation, organic vegetarian food, building with local materials, reforesting with native-trees and community participation.
Best-practices are copied by other hostels in Chugchilán. Both have built with homemade adobe blocks, planted native-trees, purchase or grow organic produce, offer vegetarian options, have improved water installations and employ local labor and guides.
BSI sponsored several workshops including: knitting, family-planning, first-aid, natural history, guiding etiquette, animal care, soap making, health and nutrition. Cloud-Forest-Hostel hosted lunches for workshops. A Peace Corp Volunteer started native-tree nurseries at the BSI and Hostel-Mama-Hilda.
Public Library/Computer Learning Center, with 1000+ books and 8 computers, provides incentive to learn to read. Older students can do research and investigations. As the 1st-world moves ahead with new technology, communities like Chugchilán get left behind. The Library/Computer Learning Center bridges that gap.
Recycling Center is a similar success story of people in Chugchilán working together to solve a common problem. Organic/inorganic wastes are sorted, composted and stored for recycling. The village is healthier and cleaner.
In 1994 only one guidebook described Chugchilán, "a very poor village in one of the most scenic areas of Ecuador" no accommodations listed. Now there are positive reviews in every Ecuador guidebook.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
Chugchilán community participates and benefits in all aspects of local tourism; primarily in OWNERSHIP of hostels, restaurants, women’s coop, transportation coop and guided activities. Community also benefits from employment, food selling, providing materials and labor for building including local inventions and designs. Chugchilán has a new economy based on eco-tourism.
Andres and Michelle are well accepted community members participating in local meetings. In 2005 BSI invited county Mayor and local officials to discuss issues including garbage disposal. This meeting initiated the Recycling Center. Andres is now the ‘King-of-Garbage’ and the elected water committee President. Michelle volunteers teaching high school since 1997.
Describe how your innovation helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area’s cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues. How do you motivate them to act responsibly in their future travel decisions?
Guests leave the BSI feeling inspired to address ecological problems at home. We have received messages from guests saying they have become ‘Eco-Warriors’ after their experiences in Chugchilán.
Chugchilán receives more tourists than surrounding villages because local people realize that it’s valuable to preserve the cloud forest, that a clean village is healthier but also attractive and that keeping traditions alive such as dancing, folk music (BSI has a Folk Instrument lending library) and knitting are also profitable.
BSI supports the preservation of historic adobe buildings and is outspoken in village meetings about architectural materials and styles. Other hostels also build with natural materials.
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your innovation, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
Guests return from hikes or horseback excursions exhilarated by the amazing scenery and because they have had direct contact with local people and one of their first conversations in Spanish. Guided activities are with local natives who don’t speak English, but know how to communicate with tourists slowly, changing words and offering explanations, instead of simply repeating the same words louder. Guides profit directly.
Local dance troupe performs regularly at all three hotels in Chugchilán. Girls, aged 8-12, perform entertaining participatory Andean folkdances in traditional dress for tips, which supports buying schools supplies and improving their costumes and music.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? What is the potential demand for your innovation?
Triple-bottom-line of sustainable tourism in Chugchilán: it is profitable and benefits both the community and environment. Poverty is being reduced from a new economy and cultural heritage is being protected. Natural environment continues to improve because of ecological practices.
All three accommodations in Chugchilán profit, which means they use extra income to improve facilities. Hotels pay a higher rate for water, subsidizing the town’s system. Tourism provides employment and a market for local goods and services. Local hotels lead the village in problems and concerns such as garbage disposal and water supply. Tourism is still growing in newly discovered Chugchilán.
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
Tourism in Chugchilán was privately financed by individual entrepreneurs with small piecemeal grassroots reinvestments. BSI was self-financed, mostly with a commitment to succeed and approximately US$75,000. As business grew, reinvestments were made in the facility, local community and promoting the area.
BSI took the initial risk, unsure if tourists would visit Chugchilán. We encouraged neighbors to open hostels and take advantage of tourism. Now two locally owned hostels work closely with BSI: Hostel-Mama-Hilda and Cloud-Forest-Hostel. BSI provided a no-interest loan to help establish a local horseback riding business.
BSI employs nine full-time staff (and several part-time) who receive full legal benefits: maternity leave, paid vacation, over-time pay, tips, social security and scheduled bonuses. Most have worked at BSI for ten+ years.
BSI receives approximately 5000 people nights/year. Guests spend an average of $35/person/day. Other hostels receive a similar number of guests at lower rates and also provide local employment.
What is your plan to expand your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
BSI would like to consult and unite tourism operations in ecological best-practices.
As a lodge, BSI has chosen not to expand, but remain a small sustainable lodge constantly making improvements: solar-powered waterslide, hot-tub heated from thermal-siphon installed on the same woodstove that heats the sauna, a Frisbee-golf course, and a multifunction Yoga studio are all improvements in the last year.
Future long-term sustainable improvements include: self-sufficiency in organic food and energy production, signs along the Iliniza Ecological Reserve, a community native-tree nursery using compost from the recycling facility, environmental education and to seek financing to add internet access at public/library.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
Community development takes time and patience. Often sustainable solutions are not the most obvious or easy paths. Sometimes communities prefer ANY and ALL development that is offered for free. We are trying to teach people to take ownership of their village and to be able to say ‘NO’ to development ideas that do not fit with the needs of the community.
As much as we highlight success stories such as: the Public Library/Computer Learning Center, Recycling Center, transportation coop, women’s knitting coop, student girls dance troupe etc… there are some development projects that have failed. For instance: elementary schools phone-line was disconnected because they did not pay their phone bill. Often new classrooms are built without funding for teachers and school supplies.
And of course, when there is new money flowing and available through tourism, some people feel left out and become envious. This is also a sign of success; there was nothing to be envious of before! A challenge is to find new opportunities that help increase services and products available so both tourists and community members can gain.
BSI strongly feels there is a need for a forum, such as ChangeMakers, to help share common problems and successes.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
Michelle Kirby, from Rochester MA, graduated with a BA in Communications and Public Relations from North Adams State College MA, but her passion was adventure travel. In addition to administrating the BSI she volunteers teaching English and computers in Chugchilán’s local high school since 1997.
Andres Hammerman, from Highland Park IL, traveled and worked across the Americas before settling down in the Andes. In addition to designing and building new features at BSI he is the current President of Chugchilán’s Water Committee and proclaimed “The King-of-Garbage.” He holds a PhD in Design from the School of Trial and Error.
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell your story.
Andres Hammerman and Michelle Kirby, founders of BSI, first visited Chugchilán in 1993 as backpackers; we loved to travel and explore ‘off-the-beaten-track’. There was no hotel in town, so we knocked on a few doors looking for a bed and ended up staying with a local family. We fell in love with the area: dramatic sierra landscape, great hiking, canyons, cloud forest, Laguna Quilotoa, excellent cheeses and most of all the friendly people. We spent two weeks in Chugchilán and did not want to leave. Previously we had looked for work outside of the United States, but had never considered buying land until a family offered it to us.
“If you like this place so much, why don’t you buy our land?”
We had to ask ourselves, “Was this a dream come true? An opportunity we could not pass by?” Here in the heart of the Andes, we could tread lightly and live sustainably. We could create a home and realize our ideals: organic gardens, friendly animals, ecological toilets, recycling waste, wastewater systems, caring for the earth and fostering our talents. Here we could live in community and have the freedom to be creative, experiment, and learn from our mistakes.
The idea of the BSI was born in 1993. The name was created before the place. We chose: “Black Sheep Inn & La Posada Oveja Negra,” because everybody recognizes the symbol of the Black Sheep, because it sounds great in every language, because there are many white sheep in the area and because many travelers are ‘Black Sheep’ that have strayed far from the flock.
After discovering Chugchilán in 1993, we returned to the USA and each worked three jobs, saving money to invest in our future. We were sure that Chugchilán was the place to put down roots, and we were determined to build a sustainable tourist destination. We moved to Chugchilán in October 1994, purchased the land in April 1995, and have been receiving guests since 1996.
Dreams have become a reality.
None of this would have been nor could continue to be possible without the support of the community and our guests. We share our home and lives with visitors from around the world in order to create an example for visitors, as well as the community of ecologically sound practices, and to encourage everyone to follow their dreams.
BSI is a work in progress. We strive to improve the facility and nurture the land. We’ve designed buildings and property using Permaculture ideas. We have built with natural and renewable resources such as adobe and straw and local labor. We harvest rainwater and humanure (abono turistico). We have reforested with native trees in terraced rows called swales and we involve ourselves with the community in the most positive ways we think possible. Everyday we learn more from the land, the neighbors, the animals and the guests. Life is a learning experience. We strive to live in harmony with and respect our surroundings.
Please write an overview of your project. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the Google map located on the competition homepage.
Black Sheep Inn is a small eco-lodge and permaculture demonstration site in Chugchilán Ecuador. Its unique location in the middle of the Latacunga Loop boasts four distinct climates in a ten kilometer radius: high alpine paramó, Andean Humid cloud forest, semi-tropical in the canyon’s lower elevations and patchwork sierra fields.
Chugchilán, a rural Andean village at 10,500 feet above sea level, three hours from the Pan-American, nearest Bank or Post Office, is a sustainable tourism destination that has become popular over the last decade.
Black Sheep Inn guest facilities are in harmony with the land, contributing to its biodiversity and sustainability. Property has nine adobe buildings, ten composting toilets, gray-water recycling, organic gardens, ponds, a wood-fired sauna/hot-tub, greenhouse, treehouse, zipline cable-swing, solar-powered waterslide and Frisbee golf course. Animals include: llamas, guinea pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, dogs, cats, and of course a Flock of Black Sheep. Guests learn about ecotourism, enjoy fantastic scenery and experience intercultural exchanges while day hiking, horseback riding or cycling in the area.
Village population: 500+/-;
Total guest accommodations in three hotels: 45 rooms;
Average tourists/night in village: 30+;
Locals working directly/indirectly in tourism: 50+;
Tourists: 44% North American, 40% European, 10% South American, 6% other.
 | S Mills said: I stayed at the Black Sheep inn in 2006...not only do they embody eco-tourism (with fully vegeterian meals using locally sourced produce ... about this idea. - 651 days ago read more > |
| Jonathan Haney said: I stayed at the inn a few years back and was affected enough by it to keep the site bookmarked. The owners work ethic and commitment is ... about this idea. - 658 days ago read more > |
| Javier Quintana said: The work of these guys is amazing!!! Keep the good work!!! about this idea. - 658 days ago read more > |
| Andres Hammerman said: Great Views - "Eco" Toilets - Contributions to the Community You must have really been disappointed with the Black Sheep Inn. I ... about this idea. - 658 days ago read more > |
| JC GM said: Great views... totally overpriced!!. I have been twice in the BSI... First time 6 years ago 2nd time last year... not impressed with the ... about this idea. - 659 days ago read more > |
| Alan Ewell said: My wife and I stayed at the BSI in 2006 and were very impressed with their technological innovation. But more importantly, we were awed ... about this idea. - 659 days ago read more > |
| Ron Mader said: Great question. Among the pluses - there would be plenty of fresh-baked cookies AND the trust system. I agree 100% with Blewter, Black ... about this idea. - 659 days ago read more > |
| Brandon Lewter said: The Black Sheep Inn was one of my first stops on a two and a half month backpacking trip across South America. After the trip was over, ... about this idea. - 659 days ago read more > |
| Deb Miner said: In 2006 I traveled to Ecuador with a group of friends from a Minnesota Rovers, an outdoor group. We spent 4 nights at Black Sheep in and ... about this idea. - 659 days ago read more > |
| tracey liles said: Having stayed at the Black Sheep Inn over New Years Eve this year, I fully support everything they say. It felt that every aspect of ... about this idea. - 659 days ago read more > |
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