Newsletter No 7

March 2002

Happy New Year and Happy Easter!  The first three months of 2002 have been a lot of fun for us with visits from our friend Wendy and Jude’s Mum & Dad, a week’s holiday with them all in the beautiful Bay Islands off the north coast of Honduras, an interview and photo shoot for Marie Claire magazine (more below!) as well as the usual challenges and experiences of work and everyday life. 

Due to a shortage of funds this year (several long-term funding programmes have reached the end of their life) the MOPAWI team in Belén and elsewhere has reduced in size.  Although this has been a difficult process, it has also been a useful opportunity for MOPAWI to re-group and look again at their long-term goals and objectives.  

The theme of this Newsletter is ‘ecotourism’.  It is often said that tourism is like fire – it can cook your food, but can also burn down your house!  Good ecotourism should have minimal negative impact on the local environment, population and culture whilst benefiting the local people and acting as an incentive for them to protect their surrounding natural resources.  In the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve MOPAWI are involved in several projects with an ecotourism component. 

Leatherback Turtle on Plaplaya beach

Each year between March and August four different types of sea turtle come up onto the beaches of La Mosquitia to lay their eggs. Turtle eggs and meat are a traditional source of protein for the coastal communities but as the human population has grown, and the market for turtle eggs outside the area expanded, in most places all the eggs that are laid are now taken. This, coupled with accidental (and sometimes deliberate) capture of adult turtles in the nets of the fishing fleets, has resulted in a rapid decline in the number of sea turtles returning to the beaches each year.

One Garífuna coastal community, Plaplaya, has realized the importance of protecting the turtles for the future and in 1995, together with MOPAWI, the community established a sea turtle conservation project.  Each year, several km of beach are patrolled by local residents and the freshly laid eggs carefully removed to an artificial nursery where they are re-buried and protected.  Over the seven years of the project, 8,367 newborn turtles have been released into the sea.  These activities are backed up by environmental education campaigns in the schools and community and training programmes for the people managing the project.

As people have heard about the project the number of tourists visiting Plaplaya and surrounding areas has increased, benefiting the project itself as well as local owners of hostelries, eating houses, shops etc.  This in turn is adding monetary value to the sea turtle population and contributing to its protection. 

School children releasing newborn turtles

Jude appears in Marie Claire magazine!

On flying out of la Mosquitia in February to buy supplies and pick up messages, we found we had a number of frantic emails from Tearfund and a freelance journalist in London entitled ‘Jude, Marie Claire wants you!’  It transpired that the magazine is running a feature on young professional women who

have left jobs in the UK to work abroad and wanted to interview Jude ASAP.

In the end she was on the phone to London for a total of three hours and then when we returned to Belén she was shadowed for half a day by a photographer who took about 500 photos!

Look out for her mug shot in the June UK edition of Marie Claire which will be available in May.

Ecotourism – The Las Marías experience

Las Marías is an indigenous community of around 500 Miskito and Pech, close to the heart of the Reserve, 5 hours upriver from Belén in a dugout canoe.  The people traditionally relied entirely on the land for their livelihood – hunting from the rainforest and growing their crops in small clearings.

In 1995 backpacker tourists began to arrive in the village to experience the extensive virgin forest, its mysterious archaeological remains and amazing wildlife - jaguars, tapirs, deer, monkeys, macaws. However, the local people were totally unprepared for the visitors and some tourists caused problems with alcohol and drugs.  There were also disputes among the villagers about who would provide lodgings, food and guide services and benefit from the resulting income. 

Up the Río Plantano to Las Marías

MOPAWI helped the community to set up its own Tourism Committee which established basic rules for the visitors and for fair management of the tourists, sharing the work around all the families.  Today, most of MOPAWI’s work is in the area of training in the provision of tourist services (food, lodging and guides) and strengthening the Committee’s capabilities so they rely less and less on help from outside.

This is true ‘ecotourism’.  It is culturally sensitive and is directly benefiting the conservation of the rainforest – all the villagers benefit in some way from the tourist income and so everyone has an incentive to conserve the surrounding environment. 

‘The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.’   Genesis 2 v15

If you move house, change email address or would like to be removed from our mailing list, please contact Jude’s sister and brother-in-law, Ruth & Stephen Smith.  Please also contact them if you would like to receive our regular prayer bulletins.  

Email address: s-j.collins@tearfund.org

Website: www.stmungos.org/tearfund.htm