DEVELOPMENT: Tourism Projects in Peru, Nepal and India Bag Awards

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Yashpal Rao

BERLIN, Mar 18 2002 (IPS) - Three projects for socially responsible tourism in Nepal, India and Peru are award winners of an international contest sponsored by a German institute.

They were awarded the so-called ‘To Do 2001’ at the weekend during the 36th International Tourism Exchange (ITB) in Berlin. Some 10,000 exhibitors from 181 countries and territories are participating in the ITB Mar 16-20.

The To Do award is sponsored every year by the Institute for Tourism and Development and backed, among others, by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and the Berlin Fair Company.

The three projects, selected from 20 entries from 14 countries, pursue independently run village and regional development concepts. One of the awards was bagged by an indigenous tourist agency Wanamei Expeditions in Cuzco, Peru.

Another was given to a development project of the Buddhist monastery Tengboche in the Everest Region of Nepal. The third winner was a tourism and village development project in Sreekandamangalam in the Indian state of Kerala.

The experience of the three winners, according to Armin Vielhuber, chairman of the Institute for Tourism and Development is “that socially responsible tourism projects are indeed in a position to contribute to poverty alleviation, provided they can develop in a peaceful setting.”

A case in point is the project in the Peruvian Amazon lowlands. Eight indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon lowlands own the Wanamei Expeditions – named after a sacred tree – in Cuzco that has been declared by the UNESCO as a world heritage.

Located in the Peruvian Andes, Cuzco developed, under the Inca ruler Pachacutec, into a complex urban centre with distinct religious and administrative functions.

Declared a world heritage site, Cuzco is the centre of the tourism market. Every year half a million tourists visit the town and undertake a number of excursions to Machu Picchu, Inka-Trail and the Amazon areas.

Wanamei Expeditions organise socially responsible and ecologically oriented excursions to the traditional areas of the Harakmbut, Yine and Matsiguenga tribes along the Rio Madre de Dios.

These tribes earn their livelihood through subsistence economy. The rainforest, which they have always been managed sustainably, used to enable the indigenous people to have a life without want. Perfectly adapted to this habitat with their knowledge and their techniques, the forest offered everything needed for their livelihood.

But since their contact with the outside world which orientates itself along demand and supply, the tapping and exploitation of resources – new settlers, road construction, deforestation, gold prospecting – they were forced to respond to this outside world and to adapt to it.

Although the Peruvian society ranked them at the lower end of the social hierarchy and they were largely cut off from the markets and income earning sources for their agricultural products, they were not prepared to surrender.

But things changed when a joint committee for the “recognition of the reserve of the communes of Amarakaeri and its management” not only dealt with the sustainable forest management but also with tourism.

The latter was seen as an economic sector through which the socio-economic development of indigenous groups could be enhanced if they are in a position to manage a participatory approach of tourism, which would benefit all the villages.

These considerations led to the establishment of the multi-communal travel agency Wanamei Expeditions in 1999. The agency’s own guides, trained by it, accompany interested tourists in and through the territory of the indigenous communities.

The second project that bagged the award is the Tengboche monastery, situated at a height of about 4000 metres. It is the cultural and spiritual centre of the ethnic group of the Sherpa in the Nepalese Mount Everest region.

Launched by the Tengboche Rinpoche (abbot of the monastery), together with the architect and town planner Michael Schmitz, the project views tourism as the transmission belt for a small-scale regional development.

The ‘Tengboche Eco Centre’, a visitors’ centre built two years ago just outside the monastery, functions as a tourist-cultural bridge to the monastery and as one of the most important income earners.

Visitors are welcomed there and given some basic information on Buddhism and the Sherpa culture. Also prayer garlands, silk scarves said to bring good luck, incense sticks, healing tea, arts and crafts of the Sherpa culture are among the items sold.

The monastery itself remains a trade-free place and it is open to all visitors. The income earned through the Tengboche Eco Centre is partly used to secure the future of the monastery – training of monks who will later teach in the villages – and for environmental projects in the region or for measures strengthening the Sherpa culture.

The tourism project in Sreekandamangalam, in the Kerala state of India, is part of a private family foundation “BASIS Projects” with 30 full-time and part-time employees, which was founded in 1990 with the activities of the couple Mathew and Leelamony Moozhiyil. Both had lived and worked in Germany for 20 years, he as an agronomist, she as a nurse.

BASIS stands for ‘Basic Agricultural and Social Improvement Schemes’. In its initial phase BASIS was a purely agriculturally oriented project which was able and which wanted to demonstrate new approaches to the local population – as an alternative to the monoculture of rubber plantations.

According to Mathew Moozhiyil, the project aims at contributing to the food security of the population through mixed cultivation, adapted to the region – among others coconut, papaya, bananas, cinnamon, muscat, tubers and rice. Another objective was to promote own initiatives and to encourage self-reliance in order to gradually improve living conditions.

As part of the project, the local population interested in vocational training is given the possibility to acquire additional skills and abilities to secure their livelihood – animal husbandry, sewing, book binding, production of furniture and tools and cultural activities such as dance.