Ecotourist Aborigin Community Evolution
Location
The Project promotes ecotourism for the protection of environment, within a context which promotes the value of social liability. For the attainment of the project, the following activities are carried out: ecological campings, rescue workshops, dialect learning with ecological subjects, agrotourism, gastronomic workshops using endemic flora and fauna, medicine plants workshops, exhibition of ecological mystic personal experiences. Upon performance of each activity, capabilities and skills of inhabitants will be developed with an ecological vision which will revalue each cultural, economic and social space from a universal vision (vision of the world from the aboriginal culture ...
About You
Contact Information
Title
Lic. en Filosofía
First name
Joaquin Alberto
Last name
Rodriguez González
Your job title
Director de Programas
Name of your organization
Fundación Comunitaria Oaxaca, A. C.
Organization type
Organization Type
Annual budget/currency
Annual Budget/Currency
Mailing address
Mailing Address
Telephone number
Telephone Number
Postal/Zip Code
Country
Mexico
Website
Email address
Alternative email address
Alternative email address
Your idea
This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.
Street Address
2a. Priv. de Sabinos 209 Col. Olimpica
City
Oaxaca
State/Province
Oaxaca
Postal/Zip Code
Country
Mexico
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists , quality of benefit to residents for the destination , quality of stewardship of the destination.
Organization size
Small (1 to 100 employees)
Indicate sector in which you principally work
Community Organization
Year innovation began
2002
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
Indigenous people.
Name Your Project
Ecotourist Aborigin Community Evolution
Describe Your Idea
The Project promotes ecotourism for the protection of environment, within a context which promotes the value of social liability. For the attainment of the project, the following activities are carried out: ecological campings, rescue workshops, dialect learning with ecological subjects, agrotourism, gastronomic workshops using endemic flora and fauna, medicine plants workshops, exhibition of ecological mystic personal experiences. Upon performance of each activity, capabilities and skills of inhabitants will be developed with an ecological vision which will revalue each cultural, economic and social space from a universal vision (vision of the world from the aboriginal culture ...
IDB/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).
Consumidores (viajeros), Agentes detallistas, Operadores de Turismo, Prestatarios de servicios turísticos, Prestatarios de servicios no turísticos (proveedores), Grupos comunitarios autóctonos, Atractivos naturales y culturales.
Indica cuales de estas tematicas cubre tu innovacion (elige todas aquellas opciones que apliquen)
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..
Innovation
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.
An ecotourist community experience undergone by an aboriginal family focused on cultural, economic, social and environmental revalorization.
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.
The Project promotes ecotourism for the protection of environment, within a context which promotes the value of social liability. For the attainment of the project, the following activities are carried out: ecological campings, rescue workshops, dialect learning with ecological subjects, agrotourism, gastronomic workshops using endemic flora and fauna, medicine plants workshops, exhibition of ecological mystic personal experiences. Upon performance of each activity, capabilities and skills of inhabitants will be developed with an ecological vision which will revalue each cultural, economic and social space from a universal vision (vision of the world from the aboriginal culture perspective) which includes the correct use and care of the environment.
The ancestral values and practices have their foundations on earth and on nature. We appraise the importance to pass along these values to young people and to visitors for the promotion of our liability for the care of the environment. The holistic approach contributes to the learning of sustainable tourism practices which goes beyond natural beauty of places at issue and which includes the communication of a universal vision and cultural practices. The true value of geotourism lies on the sharing of places a fact which derives from people’s deep belief.
Explain in detail why your approach is innovative
The project promotes ecological tourism from personal experience in a community with an ecological environment. The tourist lodges with a family and shares with it daily activities and ecological practices. He/she participates of the life and the relation of the community with nature. This project promotes the preservation of the environment based on the social, cultural, economic and political appraisal; through experiences full of ecological content, it offers the transmission of knowledge deriving from a universal community vision.
The tourist participates in activities tailored for him/her in advance, in order for the tourist to appraise the profitable use of the flora and fauna for the preparation of regional meals at the same time that he/she eats them; the tourist also listens to local stories and enjoys all things offered by nature; he/she learns from the existence of native plants, used for traditional medicine (homeopathic medicine); he/ she is aware of the crop processes or collection of fruits and wild food or elements produced by his/her work.
The project promotes the participation of the tourist with the organization of the ecological campings and ensures him/ her a living experience where he will find unconventional services within a place with unique natural conditions.
Impact
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?
Employment positions are generated in order to avoid migration to other Mexican cities or to other countries such as U.S.A. and Canada; taking root and family integration are promoted; environment is taken care; active participation is carried out in local economy; aboriginal language, uses and customs are appraised.
Ecotourist activity is an alternative for solving problems such as unemployment, deforestation, insufficiency of resources to develop preservation and remediation activities, as well as those aimed at a sustainable use of resources.
From qualitative standpoint, this activity gives an additional value to the cultural aspect because it promotes the participation of the aboriginal families with their living experiences, traditions and organization behaviors to create interaction with tourists. Thus, families are encouraged to recognize their identities, value their origin and community stories.
It allows for the development of a new activity compatible with the environment, which may generate complementary revenues and prevent from productive activities to damage the environment, returning habitats to nature, which may restore flora and fauna to the ecosystems, which have been altered, by the action of man.
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 original proposal has arisen from families, from the coffee organization at that place, and municipal authorities.
The undertakers are the inhabitants of the communities who directly work in all proposed activities, they are also who will administer and will render ecotourism services to visitors.
In previous experiences, participants have satisfactorily responded, obtained positive results in qualitative and quantitative aspects. On the one part, community economy is becoming active upon generating revenues, which allow for the acquisition of goods and services, on the other, acquire knowledge, and establish social relationship with different persons.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
Lodging with a community family for sharing common spaces, cooking and eating food. Participating in workshops of mystic experiences, taking rural photographies, carrying out activities for the preservation of the environment.
Living together and knowledge of uses and customs of the families.
Experiencing different microclimates within the own Basin, for the experience of activities in Rivers, fog forests, farms, coffee with production of organic shade coffee which is of an international quality with certification in a process of authorization: Pluma coffee, panorama to places of interest for the community and neighboring communities, visit to places of interest to the community and neighboring communities, tianguis traditional, etc.
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.
Through the acknowledgement of community uses and customs, the manners of community organization and daily activities in relation to nature. Tourists realize that community is dependant on its main source of work: the shade coffee, which grows in its natural environment to ensure its permanence. The care for the environment is the result of the interaction between tourists and local people.
Education on the care of the environment: separation of waste in organic and inorganic, the use of ecological dwelling infrastructure, construction of family orchards, waste recycling, composting production, etc.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
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.
At present campings are financed with monetary contributions from national and International organizations managed by Fundación Comunitaria, in addition to the payment that tourists make to participate in such activities and receive those services.
The Fundación Comunitaria Oaxaca, A.C. may support the implementation of such an innovative initiative with resources mainly arising from three financing sources: 1. Contributions from beneficiary, through the insipient infrastructure held. 2. Collection of national and international resources from the public and private sector. 3. Own resources held by the Fundación.
The Fundación holds a part of the resources for the financing of this initiative and continues to work on a simultaneous manner in order to collect the complementary resources demanded by co-financing.
Profit and Loss Statement 2008:
Total Revenues $11,285,652.21
Total Expenses: $8, 272,641.37
We are 9 full-time employees of the operating personnel and at present we have two volunteers.
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?
Specifically the camping Project for university young people is sustainable from financing standpoint as the Fundación carries out steps before national and international givers in order to have the economic resources for financing the corresponding activities. In addition, an economic contribution from university youth is necessary.
However, the replication and enlargement of the Project to the communities located onto the Basin of Copalita river, additional economic resources are required to provide with infrastructure, training and spread of the products and services offered.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
Absence of infrastructure to offer the tourist products and services.
Absence of training to inhabitants from the entrepreneurial vision.
Absence of economic resources of population to invest in ecological programs, as a community considered of High and Very High Margination by the National Institute of Geography and Information Systems.
The absence of commitment shown by some people as to the environment care.
The barriers to obtain a higher impact are as follows:
The absence of promotion and spread of products and services which the aborigines living onto the Basin of Copalita river will offer.
Absence of support for the implementation of the comprehensive strategic plan for the cleansing and preservation by government of the natural environment of the Basin of Copalita river.
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.
To manage economic resources to furnish infrastructure, training and give higher spread for the implementation of the Project.
To inform organizations and local communities the results, advances, impacts in quantitative and qualitative terms.
To establish experience interchanges with other countries.
To create with the project a model community whose experience may be spread on an International scope.
To carry out the systematization of the experience which may allow for the spread in different national and international mass media, the attainments of the project to other Mexican states and other countries of the world for them to know the success of the project.
The Story
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.
Fundación Comunitaria Oaxaca A.C. is an organization deriving from a civil company with no profit purposes nor political or religion goals; it was created as an initiative constituted by a Group of entrepreneurs and representatives of organizations of such a civil company at Mexico city, with the support of representatives of some international foundations. Entrepreneurs, leaders of civil organizations, representatives of aboriginal groups, and other personalities which represent the Oaxacan community add from time to time to such an initiative. All leaders are joined together for the same purpose: the sustainable development of Oaxaca town and the benefit for its people.
The organization arises from the need to look for development alternatives for the community of Pluma Hidalgo, a place which possess a lot of natural wealth which differs from its marginal and poor situation; also this place needs to preserve its natural resources and also makes a profitable use of the opportunities which they offer. The innovation arises from the successful experience and positive results obtained from a project on University Campings which took place in coordination with Fundación Comunitaria Oaxaca in 2002, which have occurred every year, until 2006 and this activity was resumed this year. Based on its evolution, these services are not only offered to young people but also to the ecotourist public in general; this Project is replicated with the integration of new ecotourist elements which enhance the experience in the Basin of Copalita river, located at Southern Mount and Oaxaca Coast.
The project started with the performance of a camping for volunteer university young people who during several years have carried out activities for social, community and environmental benefits in aboriginal communities in different Oaxaca regions.
We replicate and enlarge the activities and offer innovative ecotourist products and services which began with the construction, refurbishment or enlargement of ecological dwelling units at the own community families' homes to give Lodge to tourists and share with them the daily or special activities planned for the day; also it is important to share ecological mystic experiences (myths, stories, legends, anecdotes) told by inhabitants; to organize gastronomic workshops with housewifes to prepare typical meals with the use of the endemic flora and fauna (moles, tamales with plantain leaf, regional dishes, sweet items, use of different corn –native seed of Mesoamerica and Basic food of communities of Southern Mexico-, Mescal is a typical beverage of Oaxaca, which origin name is in process); preservation of language through the guided visits along fog forests, rivers, farms, coffee farms and other places; aborigines are interested in being tourist guides in addition to show the process for obtaining one of the organic coffee grains which is obtained under shade with the highest quality recognized at international level: Plume coffee, the origin name of which is in an authorization process.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
Doctor in Law, member of Directive Board for more than fourteen organizations at the local and national level, such as Mexican Center of Philanthropy and Nontrivial Philip Morris Fund. Graduated at New York Synergos Institute as Senior Fellow Class 2002 in social leadership. Member of International Committee of the Council on Foundations, with headquarters in Washington D.C.; International Committee for Youth Development, Tufts University, Boston; International Committee of Global Fund for Community Development, headquarters in Brussels; and International Committee of World Bank for the Community Foundation Fund.
Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.
Contact with endemic flora and fauna within a protected natural area; mystic experiences of ecological narrations told by inhabitants; information of the process for production of organic coffee “Pluma” with origin name in an authorization process; gastronomic experience for the elaboration of food based on endemic flora and fauna for being fed during his/her stay; social experience of lodging in the home of an aboriginal family which offers an ecological dwelling place for sharing daily experiences; environmental and social interpretation of the zone, taking into account Copalita river Basin.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
To establish partnerships with State, National and International Institutions which promote ecotourist projects. Local Authorities, Work Groups and Local Organizations which promote Ecotourism. Public and Private Universities which may carry out impact assessments regarding the project. Partnerships with institutions or International organisms, which promote ecotourism services worldwide.
 | libbylibbylibby said: Felicidades por su proyecto. Me gustaría saber un poco más sobre la región donde se encuentra este proyecto y los pueblos indígenas que ... about this Competition Entry. - 980 days ago read more > |
| patobm submitted this idea. - 981 days ago |
