Camino Real – The Gold Route: Conservation and Sustainable Development Axe of Alto Chagres, Panama
Between the XVI and XIX centuries, the Camino Real was, together with Camino de Cruces, the only two roads to cross the Isthmus of Panama through which treasures were transported as well as the commerce which sustained the Spanish empire. This project aims at establishing the Road called Camino Real as a conservation and sustainable development axe, strengthening the conservation processes of the Chagres National Park and the Portobelo National Park. This project plans to recover, restore, interpret, signpost and promote Camino Real, to rebuild Ventas (shelters where people could rest) and to insert the local population into the benefits stemming from tourism incorporating them to the ...
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Información de contacto
Title
Titulo
First name
Lic. Julio
Last name
Rodríguez
Your job title
Manager
Name of your organization
The Nature Conservancy
Organization type
Tipo de organización
Annual budget/currency
Presupuesto anual
Mailing address
Dirección
Telephone number
Número de teléfono
Postal/Zip Code
Código Postal
Country
Panamá
Website
http://Sitio web
Email address
julio_rodriguez@tnc.org Conservancy
Alternative email address
tu idea
Esta será la dirección usada para marcar tu participación en el mapa.
Street Address
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City
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State/Province
.
Postal/Zip Code
Código Pos
Country
Panamá
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of benefit to residents for the destination , Quality of tourism management by destination leadership .
Organization size
Large (more than 1000 employees)
Indicate sector in which you principally work
Conservation/Preservation organization
Year innovation began
2008
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
History, Architecture, Living culture, Nature, Indigenous people, Adventure, Education, General destination stewardship/management.
Name Your Project
Camino Real – The Gold Route: Conservation and Sustainable Development Axe of Alto Chagres, Panama
Describe Your Idea
Between the XVI and XIX centuries, the Camino Real was, together with Camino de Cruces, the only two roads to cross the Isthmus of Panama through which treasures were transported as well as the commerce which sustained the Spanish empire. This project aims at establishing the Road called Camino Real as a conservation and sustainable development axe, strengthening the conservation processes of the Chagres National Park and the Portobelo National Park. This project plans to recover, restore, interpret, signpost and promote Camino Real, to rebuild Ventas (shelters where people could rest) and to insert the local population into the benefits stemming from tourism incorporating them to the ...
BID/FOMIN
Si perteneces a un pais de Latinoamerica y el Caribe tienes la oportunidad de presentar tu iniciativa para acceder a fondos para innovaciones en turismo sostenible del BID/FOMIN (para mayor informacion leer la seccion sobre la oportunidad BID/FOMIN en la pagina principal del Desafio).
Deseo postularme.
Si perteneces a un pais de Latinoamerica y el Caribe tienes la oportunidad de presentar tu iniciativa para acceder a fondos para innovaciones en turismo sostenible del BID/FOMIN (para mayor informacion leer la seccion sobre la oportunidad BID/FOMIN en la pagina principal del Desafio).
Operadores de Turismo, Prestatarios de servicios turísticos, Grupos comunitarios autóctonos, Atractivos naturales y culturales.
Indica cuales de estas tematicas cubre tu innovacion (elige todas aquellas opciones que apliquen)
Cartografía, Planificación y Gestión de destinos, Innovación y diversificación en el desarrollo de productos turísticos, Profesionalización, buenas prácticas y certificación de servicios turísticos sostenibles, Estrategias y herramientas innovadoras para la promoción y puesta en mercado de destinos y productos en turismo sostenible y geoturismo..
Innovación
What is the goal of your innovation? Please describe in one sentence the kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Recover and restore Camino Real with applied geography, integrate communities to the benefits of tourism and preserve the cultural and natural heritage.
Please write an overview of your project. Include how your approach supports or embodies geotourism or destination stewardship. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the map located on the competition homepage.
Between the XVI and XIX centuries, the Camino Real was, together with Camino de Cruces, the only two roads to cross the Isthmus of Panama through which treasures were transported as well as the commerce which sustained the Spanish empire. This project aims at establishing the Road called Camino Real as a conservation and sustainable development axe, strengthening the conservation processes of the Chagres National Park and the Portobelo National Park. This project plans to recover, restore, interpret, signpost and promote Camino Real, to rebuild Ventas (shelters where people could rest) and to insert the local population into the benefits stemming from tourism incorporating them to the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage and strengthening their skills.
Explain in detail why your approach is innovative
We consider that this approach is innovative because it propounds the possibility to use Camino Real on one side as a conservation axe of important natural resources and exceptional biological wealth which includes the Chagres National Park, the most important Hydrographic Basin of the Panama Canal and the Portobelo National Park, which is a Historic and Cultural Heritage Site. On the other side, Camino Real becomes a sustainable development axe for the communities along the road due to the benefits arising from tourism. This approach proposes to recover and enhance the historic and cultural value of Camino Real to encourage precisely the conservation of this natural and cultural heritage along the Road and of historic sites such as Portobelo, integrating them into the socio-economic development of the communities in a sustainable way.
Impacto
Describe the degree of success you have had to date. How do you measure, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact on sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How has it transformed or contributed to the power of place or demonstrated the sustainability of tourism? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
The Route is being promoted by some tour operators. With the SENACYT INAC project work is being done on the geographic location and the mapping of the Route. Works are also being performed in connection with an exotic species called paja canalera [Canal Straw] and the organization of communities along the Route. However, a project is required to integrate each of these work axes to obtain a stronger impact and success.
The idea is to establish quantitative and qualitative indicators to perform a long-term monitoring of the contribution of this approach to the socio-economic development of the Gold Route communities. We aim at integrating specific Route sectors to the pattern of biodiversity monitoring, which has been implemented for three years now in the High Chagres.
We propose the systematization of the historic documentation of Camino Real as a fundamental axe to this approach, as well as its promotion and interpretation. Furthermore it is contemplated the enhancement of the cultural and natural values of Camino Real and the preparation of communities to participate in the development of this project without affecting their socio-cultural system.
Studies will be developed regarding acceptable load limits and mitigation measures will be determined in order to reduce the environmental and social impact of the project.
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your work, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
The community shows a great deal of interest to participate in this type of approaches, since they envisage tourism as a work opportunity and of resource generation to cover their basic needs, taking into account the fact that they live in a protected area where this type of activity is consistent with the conservation objectives of the area. It is important to point out that a great deal of population members along the Route are below the poverty line. For them it will be very difficult to determine local capabilities to participate in the use of the tourism activity. This is an important axe that is considered in the proposed approach.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
The project aims at creating capabilities in the relevant players (tour operators, companies rendering services to the community, among others) and to interpret the Route so that the visitor apart from learning about history may also develop a cultural and natural experience throughout the tour. The idea is to develop a different product and packages for different types of visitors as well as promotional material on the Route. The approach also involves the preparation of surveys to measure satisfaction level and indicators showing those aspects that have to be improved. One of the main goals of this approach is the participation of local population in the benefits arising from tourism.
Describe how your work helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues.
The promotion of the Gold Route will be focused on its historic, natural and cultural values to attract visitors. Promotional material (packages, posters, videos, web, among others) will aim at highlighting these three values and to what an extent this type of activities is consistent with the conservation of natural and cultural resources if they are carried out under sustainability parameters. The approach proposes to create in the communities those capabilities relating to the historic and cultural importance of the route and execute an environmental education component to make communities aware of the importance of conservation in protected areas and of their biological wealth.
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Sustenibilidad
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.
(no más de 150 palabAt present the concept of Camino Real is developed in a manner which is not integrated by a diversity of entities, without an integral vision. Funds are set apart from different sources, however information is dispersed and not aggregate. With this project a concrete initiative would be set for with financing that will be used for said project on the bases of time schedules, products, goals and indicators.
The organization which leads The Nature conservancy, TNC, approach is an entity working at global level. The Program in Panama has seven members and we manage an annual budget of around US$650,000.00 to finance our operation at national level.
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Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?
With the project implementation, the Road called Camino Real will become a financially sustainable activity, since the expectation is to generate revenue flows arising from visiting and recreation activities and the establishment of small community undertakings to cover the operation costs and at the same time generate revenue for the participating communities. The present amount of visitors to the Chagres National Park is of more than 25,000 per year and the demand continues growing; a large proportion of visitors is interested in ethnic / cultural tourism. The creation of the above mentioned conditions would improve the offer of services to satisfy the present and potential demand that the Route would include.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
Among the main barriers that we must consider in the handling, implementation or replication of this approach is the fact that we must take into account that the Road called Camino Real passes through two protected areas with Handling Plans, with regulations and zoning which must be respected and considered in the execution of this approach. However, this implies that the project must be within the framework of actual sustainable development precepts.
Another barrier to be considered is the creation of local capabilities in the communities to provide good services of attention to visitors and to strengthen their capabilities to handle community undertakings related to tourism services.
Finally it will be very important to create and strengthen partnerships with tour operators in order to have a regular demand of visitors considering the maximum acceptable load limits or the studies on load capacity of the Road, and to be aware of the incorporation of communities into the benefits of tourism.
What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
In order to spread this project the plan is to involve the business corporation sectors in Panama and Spain which have shown interest in this approach or which may be valued as potential partners to be incorporated in the development of some of the project components. Partnerships with operators will be both valuable and strategic for community members to obtain benefits and reinvest in the maintenance and operation of the investments made in order to assist visitors. The incorporation of the Academy as Universities and Research Institutes will be another strategy to be implemented with the purpose of generating scientific and archeological research works around the Route.
La historia
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
I am Panamanian, tropical biologist specialized in zoology/ornithology. I have a Master Degree in Protected Areas granted by the University Universidad Complutense de Madrid. I have been working for over 10 years in Conservation and Sustainable Development throughout the whole country. My experience includes working for NGO’s, PNUD projects and the National Environment Authority performing multidisciplinary tasks and with different cultural groups. At present I work for The Nature Conservancy, as Alto Chagres Manager (for over 4 years) and Darién executing and supervising different projects relating to Conservation ad Sustainable Community Conservation.
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.
The Nature Conservancy is a charitable undertaking which has worked for over 50 years with persons, communities, governments and businesses to protect the ecosystems which assure our existence and improve our life quality. The mission of TNC is to preserve natural plants, animals and communities representing the diversity of life on Earth, protecting the land and the water which they need to survive. During these five decades, TNC has stood out due to its important role in the protection of natural resources through the implementation of conservation projects in 30 countries around the planet, and the protection of over 47 million hectares and 8,000 kilometers or rivers around the world.
This project puts forward two factors of great interest such as the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the Gold Route and the sustainable development starting from the integration of communities with a certain degree of poverty to the benefits arising from tourism.
By natural heritage we mean the tasks carried out to preserve two protected areas of singular importance: Chagres National Park: this is a high biodiversity area providing invaluable environmental services to Panama and to the world, supplying almost 40% of the water used by the Panama Canal for its operation and almost 100% of the drinking water required by the most important cities in this country: Panama and Colon. On the other hand, Portobelo National Park: an area of exceptional beauty which protects the colonial structures known as Conjunto Monumental [Monumental Group], integrated by buildings of a military, religious, civil and cultural character and by the OAS Monumental City of America. The project is very interesting because it gives priority to the recovery and restoration of Camino Real, the reconstruction of Ventas (shelters where people as also the mules which carried the gold could rest) for rural tourism, integrating the communities to the benefits based on organization, the creation of local capabilities, the promotion of small community businesses.
This initiative contemplates the establishment of productive network patterns through the integration of the communities adjacent to the road and the establishment of small community businesses as well as the integration of native populations of the indigenous ethnia Emberá to the Gold Route through the implementation (unfinished sentence).
Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.
The proposal consists in experimenting again, by traveling along a unique historic route, Camino Real, the shortest path in the New World joining the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea which enabled commerce between Spain and its colonies and which was used for the transportation of the American gold to the Spanish empire. The Gold Route also proposes a unique experience from the natural point of view with ecosystems, biodiversity and unique landscapes which are distinctive of the tropical forest and a cultural experience which includes exchange with indigenous, countrymen and afro-Caribbean cultures along this Route.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
Partnerships are proposed with Government institutions such as the National Environment Authority, the Panama Tourism Industry, the National Institute of Culture. With local Undertakings devoted to conservation and sustainable development such as the Chagres National Park Foundation and the Asociación Comunitaria para el Manejo Participativo del Parque Nacional Chagres (ACOCHA) [Community Association for the Participative Handling of Chagres National Park]. It is expected to make partnerships with agencies for international cooperation such as the US Agency for International Development (acronym in Spanish USAID) and the Agency of Spanish Cooperation and the Panamanian corporative sector and transnational Spanish companies that are present in Panama, at Universities and at the Seville File of Indies.
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Comentarios
If the situation of nature and National Parks in Panama is concerning, the situation of the cultural heritage is even worse. First, national parks face problems like invasions, deforestation, poaching, and it is normal that often live up to several thousand people within its borders. This applies also for the National Parks Chagres and Portobelo (with a combined area of about 1650 square kilometers), parks where the Camino Real and proposed project lies. Deforestation along major river valleys is critical, and threatens to split up the parks into two isolated areas, the remaining stretch of connecting primary rainforest measures only 6.8 kilometers, with all its consequences for the populations of monkey and cutting off “The path of the Jaguar”. East lies the majority of the Chagres National Park and West besides parts of Chagres and Portobelo National Park, the Sierra Llorona, an area without legal protection and high biological diversity.
Second, the situation of cultural heritage is even more concerning, cultural heritage sites are absolutely no priority in official policies, even sites with world heritage status face severe problems of conservation. A heritage like the Camino Real, which is widely unknown among the public in Panama and the world, confronts even more difficulties in its conservation. The Camino Real has no legal protection, characteristics of the trail are not considered as important heritage (it is often heard: “what matters some stones”), and the exact course of the trail was not known until recently. Only within the last ten years significant sections have been destroyed, mainly because of not knowing “where” it is and “what” it is. Now, remaining parts of the Camino Real lie almost entirely within the mentioned national parks, where it again faces threats of destruction, because of human activity within the parks. Furthermore the trail runs parallel the course of mayor river valleys of the area, exactly along the critical connection of two primary forest areas, thereby fostering heritage tourism along the Camino Real would also offer relief for the forests in this critical area.
What can be done? The key are human activities of people living under conditions of extreme poverty within the parks, development of geotourism will reduce their dependence on environment damaging practices within the parks and they will improve substantially their standard of living. How can the Camino Real contribute: by offering a unique tourist destination; by visiting the Camino Real one can really experience history, walk on an historical trail through the jungle, in the footsteps of “conquistadores” and pirates like Francis Drake, discover the history of maroon communities and the long history of Native-American people from Paleo-Indian times up to today. In order to realize this objective a reconstruction of a historical road station could be created or a museum village of pre-columbian cultures, interpretative trails to caves with Paleo-Indian artifacts and additional facilities that would bring history to life. Actions that shall benefit the local economy and communities and consequently improves the conservation of the heritage, creating a positive feedback circle of Tourism, Sustainable Development, Conservation and again Tourism (not to forget the several topics of investigation, from archaeology, sociology, tourism, biology etc. that can be realized). And in the end this may change attitudes in regard of (in particular cultural) heritage among the general public of the country, so they will appreciate what was not visible for long time.
By Christian Strassnig
Investigator and Explorer of the Camino Real
El legado historico de la ruta del Camino Real es de grandisima importancia para la patria que no se debe dejar perder. Este proyecto muestra una clara vision de la clase de turismo que se debe emprender en Panama y en toda nuestra region; uno en el que la gente local gana (+solvencia economica), la naturaleza gana (+proteccion y apreciacion), el pais gana(+turismo, orgullo, y admiracion), y al final el mundo gana...
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