Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Ecotourism vacations are short: Stay awake for them!

We traveled to Panama recently to see how communities are addressing the pressures brought on by increased tourism demand. One of the best things about ecotourism is the opportunity to witness (and support) non-tourism industries and livelihoods. And we discovered a thriving coffee industry that is alive and well in the mountains of western Panama.

An hour inland from the Pacific Coast, Boquete sits at around 1,500 meters above sea level and is surrounded by coffee plantations. There are plenty of Americans here - Boquete was featured by AARP a few years ago - but the coffee industry remains the dominant force in the local economy. A full day of walking through the surrounding hillsides opened our eyes to the vibrant and varied coffee-growing activities, all well-insulated from the growing stream of tourist traffic.

(By the way, nice to see that the local enterprises are capturing a majority of the coffee value chain: all the way from growing and harvesting the raw beans to processing, roasting and packaging.)

Although not a new concept, we think there is an under-utilized opportunity for growing tourism to be integrated with and even to benefit local coffee growers. Coffee-loving tourists, after all, love to see the plantations, a lesson the wine industry knows well.

And ecotourists, drawn to the beauty and "intactness" of the natural landscape, will no doubt demand a responsibly grown product, complete with polyculture and safeguards for biodiversity. Thus, coffee tourism can serve to protect biodiversity by ensuring responsible cultivation practices are used. In conjunction with coffee certification schemes - including fair trade, shade-grown, and the like - the coffee-drinking public will be educated about the impacts of their consumption decisions, thereby (we hope) reinforcing price premiums in the market.

In a place like Boquete, which borders a massive national park reaching across the nearby border with Costa Rica, coffee tourism could also expose visitors to the intact landscapes beyond the agricultural frontier.

Working in a fast-paced, nascent start-up, we can certainly appreciate the caffeinated pleasures of a good cup of coffee (at any hour of the day or night). To be sure, we'll be using this invaluable resource as do field research and other tasks this summer and beyond. As our work progresses, we'll be looking for opportunities to responsibly integrate important local industries with ecotourism. In the coming months, we'll be checking out coffee tourism taking place in Mexico, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

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