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Building a Men's Cooperative in El Cielo
by Scott Walker
MEXICO
-- Several years of work by men of the "Cooperativo de
los Hombres" in Alta Cima, Tamaulipas
is evident today. |
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| In 1995, when I began
visiting El
Cielo Biosphere Reserve, where the small community of Alta
Cima is located, the men were just beginning to organize themselves
into a cooperative ("Cooperativo de los Hombres")
that would eventually build a rustic hotel and operate an ecotourism
guide service.
The men were following the lead of La Fe, the Alta Cima Women's
Co-op, which had successfully cornered the restaurant market
in this once "restaurant-free" mountain community.
The men's co-op, with fourteen active men today, began with
building a spartan four-room hotel that had no electricity,
only outdoor cold-water showers and pit latrines, yet a magnificent
view of the Sierra Cucharas in Mexico's rugged Sierra Madre
Oriental in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.
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SNAPSHOT
Today the men's co-op boasts an expanded three-building, eleven
room hotel, each with indoor toilets, hot and cold water showers,
lavatories, and photovoltaic-powered lighting. The office has
a cell phone, as well as a gas stove where, if you ask, you
might convince one of the rotating caretakers to heat some water
for your morning tea or instant coffee.
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The hotel is named after the lone pine tree that overlooks
the grounds. Hotel El Pino is the result of a non-governmental
community organization project—Progama ¡Organizate!—that
began in 1994 to help the members of the Alta Cima community
establish and realize goals for themselves.
Once a thriving logging community, Alta Cima fell into poverty
after the area in which it is located was designated a biosphere
reserve. In 1985, when the reserve was created, the residents
of each of the communities within its boundaries no longer had
viable occupations, because, with the stroke of the governor's
pen, all large-scale commercial logging ceased.
Further strengthening the area's protection was its designation
as a UNESCO
"Man and the Biosphere Reserve" in 1986.
The creation of El Cielo Biosphere Reserve, a huge conservation
step in Northeastern Mexico, was sorely needed. One of the Earth's
northernmost tropical cloud forests, El Cielo serves as a water
catchment for the agriculturally rich Huasteca region of northeast
Mexico, not to mention the outstanding biodiversity that exists
in the 144,530 hectare (356,442 acre) reserve.
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BIRDING
In addition to the hotel, which is aimed at serving the general
ecotourist, the men's group has been able to monopolize on the
area's incredible avifauna diversity. It is estimated that within
the reserve there are at least 255 resident bird species and
175 migratory species, easily making El Cielo the home, at some
point in the year, to just fewer than 50% of Mexico's bird species.
The men's group has a team of eight guias de aves, or guides
specializing in birding, who have taken courses in birding and
courses in limited 'tourism' English.
One morning while I was giving Esteban, one of the hotel's caretakers
and a guia de aves, some second-hand day packs and binoculars
I had brought with me as a donation to the co-op, he demonstrated
his birding knowledge on the spot. He identified, speaking in
English, the calls of at least eight bird species in a matter
of a few minutes.
Not being a die-hard birder myself, just one who enjoys peering
at them through binoculars from time-to-time, I appreciated
learning the birds by their calls in their common English names,
since the Spanish names are often too difficult for me to remember.
Services such as the birding guides will likely be the mainstay
of the Alta Cima men's co-op. Alta Cima rests mid-way up the
mountain road that carries tourists into the reserve. Entrepreneurs
in the lower-altitude municipal capital town of Gómez
Farías discovered that taking tourists into the reserve
by four-wheel drive truck was a booming business opportunity.
On my first trip here in 1995 up until 1999 the best way to
get from the tropical lowlands was either by driving your own
high-clearance vehicle or by walking. Now there are over 30
trucks and drivers transporting tourists up to the higher elevations
of the reserve, bypassing Alta Cima and the Hotel El Pino.
However, with specialized skills such as birding and guiding,
the Cooperativo de los Hombres de Alta Cima now caters to the
birding enthusiast. It may just be this sub-genre of ecotourist
that offers sustainability to this community-based group's endeavors.
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VISITING?
LOCATION -- Hotel El Pino is located within El Cielo
Biosphere Reserve in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Alta Cima, the community
in which the hotel is located, is a one and a half hour drive
north of Cuidad Mante and a two-hour drive south of Ciudad Victoria,
the capital of Tamaulipas.
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Bus service is available from either Cd. Mante or Cd. Victoria
to Gómez Farías. Enter the reserve from the municipal
capital (similar to a county seat) of Gómez Farías.
From there you will either need a two- or four-wheel drive truck/SUV
to drive yourself up the mountain road, or you can catch one
of the numerous transportes de viajes trucks to Alta Cima.
Rooms at Hotel El Pino have sleeping configurations of bunk
beds that sleep four to a room and three-person rooms with one
double bed and one single bed. Each room has a hot shower (you
must ask the caretaker to light the hot-water heater for you
though), a toilet, a sink, and one florescent light operated
by solar panel.
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