Ties Ecocurrents Quarterly Emagazine - 2006 Q4

Uniting Conservation, Communities, and Sustainable Travel

E c oCurrents

Fourth Quarter 2006 Price: $2.00 USD

INSIDE

THIS ISSUE:

SPECIAL FEATURE: CULTURAL HERITAGE & HANDICRAFTS: PRODUCTS + SERVICES

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Editor: Katie Maschman Copy Editor: Dave Mesrey

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s world travelers, we look for authentic connections with host communities in journeys. As travel professionals, we strive to create and maintain a genuine sense of place — to provide an atmosphere of unique connections between our local communities and visitors. As ecotourism supporters, we are committed to positive experiences for both visitors and hosts and to providing financial benefits and empowerment for local people. As your global ecotourism association, TIES recently hosted an enlightening forum about Handicrafts, Fair Trade, and Cultural Heritage within ecotourism. This edition of EcoCurrents, builds of the forum’s informative discussion as we examine revitalization of cultural heritage and handicraft operations as tools for economic development and local empowerment. We hope you enjoy this issue of EcoCurrents and encourage you to check TIES’ website (www.ecotourism.org) in the coming weeks for an audio recording of the cultural heritage forum. I also ask you to share your thoughts on cultural heritage and resources for handicraft business development with fellow members. For potential insertion in future editions of EcoCurrents, write us at [email protected]. —Katie Maschman, TIES Membership & Communications Director

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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EXPRESSING CULTURAL IDENTITY & HERITAGE IN BOLIVIA

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CULTURAL MUSEUM FLORISHES IN LOCAL COMMUNITY

CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE HIGHLANDS OF VIETNAM

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PRESERVING TRADITIONS THROUGH 6 FAIR TRADE CRAFTS 2007 EDITORIAL CALENDAR

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2007 CONFERENCES www.ecotourism.org

EXPRESSING CULTURAL IDENTITY AND HERITAGE IN BOLIVIA By Jennifer Marcy

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n Bolivia’s tropical Chapare region, an indigenous Quechua woman named Prima Zerda recently formed a crafts association with her neighbors. They meet regularly to produce items made out of a native straw called Jipi Japa. But the group has struggled in its efforts to find sufficient markets for the home-based enterprise. The experience of Zerda’s crafts association is not all that uncommon. Unfortunately, many artisans in Bolivia and around the world lack the entrepreneurial resources to substantially increase their income through the sale of traditional crafts. CHF International, a humanitarian and international development organization, has recognized the need for long-term economic assistance and job creation in the Chapare. The organization helps communities expand entrepreneurial activity in a number of areas, including the handicraft sector, in an effort to present economic opportunities to poor regions throughout the world. Handmade objects are an expression of cultural identity and heritage for artisans worldwide, and when harnessed effectively, the production and distribution of these items has immense commercial

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Uniting Conservation, Communities, and Sustainable Travel

Ecotourism North America America Ecotourism in in North

September September 26-29, 26 - 28,2007 2007 Monona Terrace

Monona Terrace Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

For conference tracks and potential sessions www.ecotourismconference.org

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Uniting Conservation, Communities, and Sustainable Travel BOLIVIA CON’T (Continued from page 1) potential. But many small-scale producer groups face daunting challenges due to the lack of integrated crafts sector development programs and because of the extremely limited access to local, regional, and international markets. The Crafts Center at CHF International continues to enhance the capacity of such artisans to gain market access, which would eventually generate income for poor communities in the developing world. CHF International has spent 54 years working with local communities, offering expertise in economics and business services, and ensuring a holistic approach to improving artisans’ earning power. These community programs have created better livelihoods for participants and have brought about positive change for entire communities. The Crafts Center at CHF International mentors artisans to become true entrepreneurs, providing the necessary resources to support all types of crafts — from concept to final sale. The Crafts Center implements integrated development programs that encompass technical support activities aimed at promoting trade. These include: •Supply assessments (especially availability of materials, labor, and the ability to ship) •Production and supply development •Identification of market opportunities and requirements •Marketing support •Training and skills development

In diversifying the product line to reach new markets, the artisans become less reliant on the seasonal tourism market. The Crafts Center is currently providing technical crafts assistance and support to 110 artisans like Zerda living in Bolivia’s Chapare region. The artisans, all of whom are women, are learning bookkeeping, product development, and marketing through in-depth grassroots training. The women are also learning important business skills that will help them reach international trade markets: quality control, packaging, customer service, market research, and trend identification. The Crafts Center also helps ensure the sustainability of the artisans’ markets, helping them identify, create, and maintain national and international market linkages. The trained artisans sell their products — which include highquality home-decorating products such as baskets, coasters, and small boxes — directly to local and regional stores. Several of the artisan groups now have the capacity to export to international markets in England, Germany, and the United States. About 25 percent of their sales are in these countries, with an average revenue of $1,500 per month. The products being sold include jipi japa hats, orange peel jewelry boxes, and banana bark gift boxes.

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By helping the artisan groups diversify their market base, the Crafts Center is enabling the artisans to become less reliant on the seasonal tourism market, while broadening their product line to reach new markets. By enabling the production of

Bolivian woman works with native Jipi Japa straw. handicrafts to be an economically viable industry, the artisans are able to express themselves and their culture heritage through the production of a traditional craft that has been slightly altered to reach a broad market base. In the 10 months that the Crafts Center has been working with these Bolivian artisans, the income of roughly half of the artisans has increased 100 percent, to 600 bolivianos a month (approximately $50 U.S.). The other half have increased their income by at least 50 percent, to 300 bolivianos a month (about $25 U.S.). The Crafts Center has chosen to work with a limited number of artisans, to ensure that the women’s acquired skills and markets are sustainable, and that the training has a significant economic impact on their families — which it has. With their revenue, the women are helping to pay for their family’s food and their children’s school fees and supplies. “I’m very happy,” says Zerda, a single mother who helped produce traditional Bolivian hats sold at the 2006 FIFA (International Federation of Football Association) World Cup. “With the money I earned, I will be able to pay for my son’s education this year and offer him things I could have never given him before.” Jennifer Marcy is the Crafts Center Manager at CHF International. CHF International is a humanitarian and development organization that offers a wide array of economic and community development services. Its mission is to be a catalyst for long-lasting positive change in low- and moderate-income communities around the world, helping families improve their social, economic, and environmental conditions. The organization provides technical expertise and leadership in international development, including critical emergency management, following disasters and civil conflict. CHF has worked in more than 100 countries worldwide since its inception. For more information, visit www.chfinternational.org.

Uniting Conservation, Communities, and Sustainable Travel CULTURAL MUSEUM FLORISHES IN LOCAL COMMUNITY By Maria J. Barquero

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n traditional Costa Rican villages, tiny rural homes coalesce around basic elements such as churches, schools, soccer fields, and pulpería. The coastal town of Islita in the Guanacaste province was no exception. But by 2003, Islita’s simple infrastructure and open spaces were transformed into a unique collective art display that redefined the area’s identity. Today, its signature destination, the Islita Open-Air Contemporary Art Museum, serves as a vehicle for cultural expression, self-validation, and entrepreneurship. The museum recently launched “Encuentro en Islita,” an initiative that paired established urban Costa Rican artists with local townspeople to create colorful outdoor murals and sculptures in a living display of local aesthetics and traditions. Sponsored by Hotel Punta Islita and its Villafranca & Zϋrcher Foundation, the museum has spawned more than five community art groups, revitalizing an economically depressed region that had relied solely on slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture.

Community Art Groups (Membership Levels)

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Marcos Steven Ruiz Marcos Steven Ruiz was one of Hotel Punta Islita’s youngest waiters. As a teenager, he was inspired by the movie Jurassic Park to carve intricate dinosaur wood sculptures. A few years later, Ruiz was involved in the “Encuentro en Islita” art project and the resulting Islita Open-Air Contemporary Art Museum. His brilliant murals depicting local fauna earned him the first college scholarship bestowed by Hotel Punta Islita and its Villafranca & Zϋrcher Foundation. Today, Ruiz is working toward a digital animation degree in San Jose. He will be the first in his family to complete post-secondary education.

Since the museum’s opening, community art groups have experienced a rapid increase in membership. One of the first associations of local artists was the Artistas del Papaturro, led by 72-year-old former schoolteacher Cecilia Aguilar. The group of 17 women regularly gather under their namesake tree to create woven collages of dry seeds, smooth pebbles, and other miniatures found in the canvas of their daily lives. Their delicate work, popular with guests, has been commissioned by the Four Seasons Hotel in nearby Papagayo, and has been displayed at galleries and museums throughout Costa Rica and Guatemala. Other groups include the driftwood woodworkers of Bosquemar, the Cantarrias potters, the Islita Youth candle makers, and the Grupo de Grabado lithographers. Realizing that visitors are interested not only in the spectacular natural beauty of their birthplace, but also in its culture and traditions, the local populace has developed a palpable sense of empowerment. “Prior to my involvement in the art groups, I barely left the house,” says Papaturra homemaker Juana López. “I hadn’t even visited the nearby beaches in over 10 years … I found no reason to.” Today, López socializes regularly with fellow Artistas del Papaturro and finds expressive language (and a supplemental source of income) in the polished glass, seashells, and twigs that line the coast. Her renewed sense of optimism is collectively mirrored in a series (Continued on page 6)

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Uniting Conservation, Communities, and Sustainable Travel Destination Highlight:

Cultural Diversity in the Highlands of Vietnam By Anne Shaw

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ietnam’s mountainous Lào Cai province exemplifies the country’s rich cultural diversity. With its northern border extending to the People’s Republic of China, Lào Cai is home to 27 distinct ethnic groups. The four main groups are the Hmong, Yao, Tày, and Giay peoples — each with their own language and cultural values. Tourists often reach the township of Lào Cai via overnight train from Hanoi and use Lào Cai as a jumping off point to explore the region. The town of Sa Pa is one hour away by bus from Lào Cai, and the short trip treats visitors to views of lush river valleys and rice terraces on their way up the Hoang Lien mountain range. Originally a French hill station built in the 1920s, Sa Pa first attracted colonists with its stunning scenery and alpine climate. Today the foundation for cultural tourism in Sa Pa is strong, as cultural minorities constitute 85 percent of Sa Pa district’s population, with the majority of those Hmong. The Hmong people are recognized as five distinct groups: red, white, flowery, black, and green. Hmong women wear traditional colorful clothing to celebrate special occasions; the most colorful among them are the clothes of the flowery Hmong. The Hmong are best known for their handicrafts, in particular, silver jewelry and dyed woven cloth. On the streets and in the market of Sa Pa, visitors can see the intensely blue cloth of the black Hmong, which is often dyed up to 30 times to achieve its deep hue. There are a number of other markets in Lào Cai that feature ethnic handicrafts, including Bac Ha and Tam Duong. Sunday is market day in the small frontier town of Bac Ha, and the roads leading to market are full of people on foot or horseback. The Bac Ha market is primarily attended by the brightly colored flowery Hmong and serves as a social center, as well as a place to buy and sell goods, including yarn, thread, woven cloth, skirts, sashes, bags, and hats in a rainbow of colors.

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Scenic views enroute to Sa Pa, Vietnam

While culture and handicrafts act as a driving force for tourism in Lào Cai, it’s possible that ethnic minorities are not fully benefiting from the tourism industry. A recent article in the Annals of Tourism Research suggests that these minorities are largely excluded from the benefits of tourism in Sa Pa, due to reduced “access to economic success and political power in the state apparatus.*” However, a number of organizations have been working to reverse these trends.

RELATED RESOURCES CRAFT LINK: A nonprofit organization committed to diversifying and developing minority handicrafts and the market for them; www.craftlink.com.vn. HANDSPAN ADVENTURE TRAVEL: Offers small group tours and eco-friendly alternatives in Sa Pa and throughout Vietnam; www.handspan.com. MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY: A research center and a public museum in Hanoi dedicated to scientific research, conservation, exhibition, and preserving the cultural patrimony of the nation’s ethnic groups; www.vme.org.vn. SNV: A Netherlands-based development organization active in promoting sustainable, pro-poor tourism development in Vietnam; www.snv.org.vn. TOPAS ECOLODGE: A Danish-Vietnamese joint venture committed to environmental and social sustainability, featuring 25 individual lodges in Sa Pa valley; www.topas-eco-lodge.com. Craft Link, a regional NGO, has assembled an Association of Craft Producers, most of whom belong to ethnic minorities, in order to ensure that the producers earn fair wages. According to Nguyen Duc Hoa Cuong of SNV, that development organization has also supported a number of communitybased tourism initiatives, including training and facilitating employment for ethnic minority tour guides, and developing a sightseeing fee-collection system that will reinvest a portion of the revenue to support community tourism development. Lào Cai province has a wealth of cultural diversity that has been rediscovered by tourists in the last decade. Colorful handicrafts brighten the markets of Sa Pa and Bac Ha, and dedicated organizations have been working to help local ethnic minorities share in the benefits that tourism brings. *Source: Michaud, Jean and Sarah Turner. “Contending Visions of a Hill-Station in Vietnam.” Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 785-808, 2006. Former TIES Intern Anne Shaw traveled to Vietnam and the Sa Pa region in the summer of 2005. Shaw is a graduate student at the University of Denver. She is pursuing an M.A. in International Development. She is a California native and holds a B.A. in International Relations and Spanish from UC Davis.

Uniting Conservation, Communities, and Sustainable Travel PRESERVINGE TRADITIONS THROUGH FAIR TRADE CRAFTS By Carmen Iezzi

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any consumers know to look in their local coffee shop for fair-trade beverages, but there is also a growing awareness that fair trade applies to handicrafts. Well-known organizations like Ten Thousand Villages and SERRV have provided gifts and household items to the public. These businesses — and hundreds of others — have committed themselves to sustainable development through a model of prmoting fair trade in crafts. Unlike an anonymous purse or basket purchased from a big box store, fair-trade products are known to have a positive effect on families because fair-trade retailers, wholesalers, and producers are fully committed to paying just wages in local context, ensuring environmental sustainability, respecting cultural identity, supporting cooperative workplaces, supplying financial and technical support, providing consumer education, and offering public accountability. By approaching development as a holistic process (rather than just pursuing a fair price), fair-trade businesses cultivate long-term relationships with their suppliers and contribute to the sustainability and true development of the communities with which they work. Around the world, fair-trade buyers partner with cooperative

enterprises to provide beautiful handicrafts to the public and to invest in communities. In Nepal, the Tibet Collection has worked with the Association of Craft Producers to revive one of the earliest textile forms — felting — and to make a diverse range of products, including clothing, toys, and holiday decorations. On top of preserving this ancient tradition, producers earn more twice the minimum wage per day, allowing their children to attend school and their families to receive health care and to prosper. Near Nairobi, Kazuri Ceramic Jewelry engages more than 300 women in the production of hand-made beads out of clay gathered from Mt. Kenya. The craftswomen are trained in various techniques to produce internationally renowned jewelry that has even caught the eye of film stars like Meryl Streep. With soaring unemployment in the area, Kazuri reports that one of its employees often provides for 20 or more family members. In Mexico, artisans use techniques developed during preColumbian times to provide Cobre Hand-Forged Copper with hand-hammered copper bowls, lamps, vases, and other products. Purepecha Indian coppersmiths at seven cooperatives reclaim and melt scrap copper in (Continued on next page )

Photos left to right: Women in a Kazuri workshop sorting beads; a producer with the Friendship and Peace Society; and producer for the Tibet Collection

CULTURAL MUSEUM CON’T

for more patrons. Local entrepreneurs are already planning to open a small cafe.

of successful “regional firsts” undertaken by local community leaders, including a small public library, a composting station, and a recycling program.

The museum is firmly established as the nontraditional, yet authentic heart of this Costa Rican community, providing a creative outlet, an income source, and a uniquely effective vehicle for responsible tourism.

(Continued from page 4)

Every year, more than 2,600 hotel guests visit the Islita OpenAir Contemporary Art Museum. Local culture, visibly depicted and easily accessible, has enriched the traveler experience and has provided an increased opportunity to interact with local hosts. The opening of the Casa Museo visitors center features not only the gallery, but also two artist workshops, further enhancing the guests’ experience and expanding the prospects

Maria J. Barquero is the Outreach Manager for Hotel Punta Islita, a boutique hotel located in a remote ocean cove of Costa Rica’s Guanacaste province. Surrounded by tropical dry forest, the Pacific Ocean, and tiny rural villages, the hotel has developed a responsible tourism model that emphasizes art as a tool for development. In April 2006, Hotel Punta Islita won the Investor in People category of the World Travel and Tourism Council’s Tourism for Tomorrow Awards.

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Uniting Conservation, Communities, and Sustainable Travel PRESERVINGE TRADITION CON’T (Continued from previous page)

order to provide environmentally friendly works to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, National Geographic, and shops across the country. Each piece reflects the individual style of the craftsmen, who always personalize the work with a signature.

Producers’ Stories The Friendship and Peace Society provides poor women in Hebron, Palestine with sustained income, while helping them maintain their ability to care for their families. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian women embroider patterns onto pillows, shawls, and other items for the Society. Each village has distinctive patterns, including the moon and cedar tree, many of which date back 150 years. Women design their own products or take requests from customers. After the peso crash of 2001, ArtiZen offered struggling Argentine artists access to the global marketplace through the production of jewelry, musical instruments, textiles, and other pieces that combine modern and traditional designs. By using the natural elements of their surroundings, like silver and wood, producers use ancient traditions to create future heirlooms that will be passed down through generations.

Carmen Iezzi is the Executive Director of the Fair Trade Federation, a nonprofit association of fair-trade businesses in Canada and the United States. Members undergo a rigorous screening process to assess their commitment to these principles up and down the chain of production. They’re committed to fair wages, cooperative workplaces, consumer education, environmental sustainability, financial and technical support, respect for cultural identity, and public accountability. For more information, visit www.fairtradefederation.org.

2007 ECOCURRENTS: Editorial Calendar During 2007, EcoCurrents will focus on the theme of sustainability. The editorial calendar is as follows: •Sustainable Transportation (March), •Sustainability & Certification (June), •Sustainable Foods (September), •Sustainable Suitcase* (December). *environmentally and socially responsible packing for the eco-traveler, for the ecotourism professional, and for the outbound operator.

Each addition will feature one destination; TIES encourages members to submit articles on the role of ecotourism within these topics. Articles are due the 1st of the month listed on the publication schedule. PHOTO CREDITS:

Please submit articles to [email protected].

(Clockwise from left on each page)

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Page 1: Table of Contents photo courtesy of Punta Islita Hotel; Article photo courtesy of CHF International. Page 2: Photos courtesy of New England Outdoor Center, Patagonia EcoCamp - Cascada Expediciones, and Terra Incognita ECOTOURS. Page 3: Photo courtesy of CHF International. Page 4: Photo courtesy of Punta Islita Hotel; Figure: Punta Islita Hotel. Page 5: Photo courtesy of Anne Shaw. Page 6: Photo courtesy of Fair Trade Federation. Page 7: Ad photo credit - Katrina Shum; Article photo courtesy of Punta Islita Hotel.

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CONTACT TIES: 1333 H St NW, Suite 300E, Washington DC 20005, USA • Tel: +1(202)347-9203 • Fax: +1(202)789-7279 • www.ecotourism.org