| HUATULCO,
MEXICO -- The peasants
in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca
face significant difficulties in sustaining their livelihoods as
farmers. The soil is washing away down the mountainsides, rainfall
patterns are changing, peasants must rely on fertilizers to produce
the most meager of crops, and more attractive jobs in factories
along the U.S.-Mexican border and work in the U.S. draw villagers
away from their homes. The farmers' investment of time and money
in planting their traditional crops is usually more than what they
gain at the end of the planting season, and so the pull to leave
farming is growing.
In the past 15 years, the peasants in the area of Huatulco along
the Pacific coast of the Oaxaca have seen a significant change in
their community. Land is owned and managed communally through a
land tenure system called an agrarian community. In Huatulco, the
agrarian community extended over 50,500 hectares. However, in 1984,
the Mexican government expropriated approximately 21,000 hectares
spanning 32 km of the coast to create a resort-complex called the
Bays of Huatulco. This mass-tourism project attracts tourists to
its 4 and 5 star hotels to enjoy the beaches, the ocean, and the
tropical dry forest.
Though few people were actually displaced by this expropriation,
the local people have been impacted in major ways. For example,
a number of tour operators take tourists to visit the natural areas
outside of the resort-complex, such as on white-water rafting expeditions
or visits to coffee plantations in the surrounding mountains. On
their way to these destinations, tourists enjoy views of small villages,
agricultural fields, and forest ² all shaped and cared for by the
agrarian community members. For instance, community members work
together to combat forest fires and have banned the cutting of large
trees in order to preserve their natural resources. This does not
mean that peasants do not engage in environmentally destructive
practices as well. However, most, if not all of the visitors and
tour operators have contributed nothing to local communities for
the use of their land that might help in maintaining these attractive
areas and promoting the care of the natural resources.
Members of a local grassroots organization observed this phenomenon
and decided to combine tourism with the resources the community
already possessed. The director of the organization was aware of
the growing trend called ecotourism and presented it to the organization
members in three communities around Huatulco. The basic idea was
to build rustic cabins made from wood with thatched roofs (building
materials available from the communal land) to host visitors in
each of the three communities. Tourists would be served local food
and activities for them would include excursions through surrounding
areas on foot or horseback.
My collaboration with the organization occurred at two levels:
as an academic researcher and as a consultant to provide an outside
perspective to the project efforts. During my four months of collaboration,
we worked on organizing the three community groups that would operate
the ecotourism business, on acquiring permission from the agrarian
community to operate a business and for the use of a parcel of land
on which to build the cabins, and beginning the building of the
cabins. The project is still in the development phase and is currently
on hold because agricultural activities have taken precedence with
the arrival of the rainy season. Some of the limitations to this
project included the lack of funds for building materials and publicity
and the limited time participants have to devote to the project
due to their needs of earn a living through other activities.
This project had some interesting features:
Local initiation. The idea was initiated from among local
people, not an outside agency or group, based on observing tourism
and considering how it could be adapted to local resources.
Economic motivation to start the project. Unlike many of
the documented ecotourism cases, conservation of a natural area
was not the primary motivation behind this project. Participants
were aware of the conservation aspects but became involved in order
to find an alternative income source to their traditional farming
activities.
Limiting participation. Though the development of the idea
was highly participatory among the people in the community groups,
the grassroots organization selected the participants among its
most dedicated and hard working members. The reason for this was
based on previous experience. Many people are enthusiastic to participate
in a project when start-up funding is available and personal gain
is likely. However, over time, many people drop out of the project
when their work is needed, often to the point where the project
fails from the lack of participation. Limiting the participation
in this ecotourism project was an attempt to avoid this precedent.
Different levels of participation. All pilot group members
did not participate equally. Women were included but had less of
a voice than men. The leaders of the grassroots organization collaborated
highly among themselves but the ideas of the other members were
not sought as vigorously.
CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, as an outsider seeking to assist the Huatulco groups
in their efforts, I learned a number of lessons in the preparation
of my thesis.
I offer these lessons for other ecotourism practitioners:
1. Local autonomy in decision-making vs. outside input
Often I had to struggle over the level of my participation as
an outsider. In principle, I was an equal participant with the community
group members and therefore my input should have had equal consideration.
At the same time, in an attempt to respect the experience of the
grassroots organization and to promote the autonomy of the local
people in making decisions for themselves, I sometimes refrained
from voicing my opinions or ideas.
Persons from outside of a given community assisting in the ecotourism
project must struggle with this issue and decide how to act to enhance
the interests of local people.
2. Community-based ecotourism is a process that is enhanced
through reflection
A community-based ecotourism project requires more than a plan
and funding to successfully implement. My experience with this project
revealed how long it took to get people interested, to affirm their
abilities in implementing the project, and to figure out how to
best use people's talents.
Reflection is an important element of that process. Reflection
can include questioning the goals of the project and revising them
if necessary, compiling and weighing options available at each stage
of the project, evaluating the group process taking place, and considering
the implications of taking certain actions. Though our planning
process was very time consuming, and I suspect future steps will
be equally time consuming, it was an important process that will
take people's efforts beyond just implementing a project to develop
people's research, analysis, organizational, and leadership capabilities.
3. All community members are not the same and power matters
When we speak of "community participation," we often
think that all community members are the similar in their motivation
for involvement or manners in which they can contribute. Through
this project, I discovered that only some members of a community
were participating while others chose not to participate or were
excluded. Among the participants, some people had more power than
others did, increasing their input in and control over the project.
This power was by virtue of gender, position in the organization,
or personal assertiveness.
While attempts to incorporate all community members into an ecotourism
project are laudable, it is a difficult goal. In trying to achieve
this goal, issues of individual differences in abilities or level
of power in the community are important to consider.
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