Ripon College Days

Media Credit: Photo by Soren Hauge Costa Rica waterfall [Click to enlarge]

Contemporary concern for environmental issues is not only changing the way people live their daily lives, it's also changing the face of tourism worldwide.

Ripon's Latin American Area Studies Coordinator and Professor of Economics Soren Hauge and seniors Julian Becker and Lea Ann Rens recently experienced the growing demand for ecotourism firsthand in the Central American country of Costa Rica.

What is ecotourism?

The budding trend involves conscientious travel to natural areas with regard for conservation efforts that benefit the environment and local people.

Travelers and businesses alike are embracing this new approach to the tourist industry because it seeks to reduce environmental impact, promotes both environmental and cultural awareness and respect, provides monies for conservation efforts and local peoples and heightens sensitivity to the political, environmental and social issues at stake in host countries.

Hauge became interested in ecotourism after doing research projects in Chile and Nicaragua. His past experiences, in conjunction with his personal interest in global environmental issues, led to his involvement with a project in Costa Rica that spanned his spring 2005 sabbatical and most of the following summer.

It was during the summer months that Becker joined Hauge in this project, named the Pacific Slope Trail project.

Pacific Slope Trail Project

Hauge learned about the Pacific Slope Trail project through the Monteverde Institute, a non-profit educational organization in central Costa Rica that his wife helped found in the 1980's.

Securing funding through college grants, Hauge set off in early 2005 for Costa Rica, where he and his family rented a home in the small town of Monteverde. Once there, he began to work with local communities on developing the Pacific Slope Trail.

The trail, once complete, will span from the cloud forests of Monteverde, through the San Luis Valley, to the Pacific Ocean. It will incorporate small farms and communities, scattered areas of forest, back roads, swinging bridges and crucial biological habitats. The trail is still in its early stages and will be constructed piece by piece over the next few years.

According to the trail project's website, pacificslopetrail.org, the trail "showcases and supports communities trying to develop ways to live sustainably in their fragile and beautiful region" and will "strengthen the ability of residents to manage their resources sustainably, earn a dignified living and preserve the rural character of their area."

Hauge's work hinged upon conversations with natives. He spoke with local groups to generate a set of rules to govern the developing trail. These rules included participation in trail maintenance, upholding a standard of non-motorized usage, consistent signs and marketing materials and promotion of conservation efforts. Hauge also facilitated a series of community meetings to help create a work plan-looking at a system of governance, trail locations and services offered-to assist in the project's further growth.

Becker, who arrived in Costa Rica in early summer, supplemented Hauge's efforts with a study of the market demand for the trail and its proposed services. He randomly selected tourists visiting the Monteverde area and asked them to determine and rank their interest in different vacation packages along the Pacific Slope Trail.

Becker and Hauge are now in the process of analyzing this data to determine which options vacationers are interested in and how much they're willing to pay for these services. This information will then be sent back to the Monteverde Institute to aid in the trail's work plans.

The Ripon senior views this project as a means by which to spread the positive financial effects of tourism around the country, while also easing the harmful effects of usage that are currently felt in the area.

"The current tourism in Monteverde is concentrating the benefits of tourism," Becker states. "[With the trail], community involvement could be greater and the benefits to the average residents of the region could be greater as well."

Tourism will potentially provide local farmers with financial incentives to preserve and reforest their land, rather than stripping it for the short-term benefits associated with farming and ranching.

"There's just an enormous amount of biological diversity for a small country and I think that not just people in Costa Rica, but people around the world have some interest in preserving that," says Hauge. "This is an attempt to give people better economic opportunities to get out of poverty and give them a reason to participate in the efforts to preserve wildlife."

The Caribbean Coast

Rens, who also traveled to Costa Rica during 2005, was not part of the same Pacific Slope Trail effort. Instead, she focused on ecotourism in another region of the country. During her spring semester abroad, she divided her time between the city of San Jose and the small Caribbean coastal communities of Puerto Viejo and Gandoca.

Rens conducted interviews with locals in both coastal towns to get a feel for their views on tourism and to allow the people of Gandoca-a place that has yet to develop its tourism potential-to learn from Puerto Viejo's already established tourism industry.

"I wanted [the people of Gandoca] to start looking at the bigger picture and ask questions about their environment and culture," says Rens. "Growing tourism is a reality for them and I want them to choose, plan and know what they're getting into."

Looking Forward

While the success of either project isn't guaranteed, Hauge remains hopeful.

"People studying both economic and environmental issues are always looking for opportunities for win-win situations," says Hauge. "This is one of those kinds of cases where it seems like there's a possibility for both [economic growth and conservation]. It seems like the time is ripe for a thing like this to work in a place like Costa Rica."

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