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Ecotourism

Partcipatory Communal Ecotourism in Vicos

Vicos, Peru In 1999, a delegation of Vicosinos visited Taquile to learn about its participatory tourism program. In Taquile, community members take turns receiving visitors and share their profits with schools, artisans and guides. Vicosinos adapted Taquile's tourism administrative structure to fit their own needs. Unlike Taquile, Vicos was fortunate to have had a record of successful collaborations with two non-governmental organizations that assisted them: Urpillachay, a Peruvian NGO that concentrates of conservation of indigenous knowledge, and The Mountain Institute (TMI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation, community development and preservation of cultures in mountain environments.

The Mountain Institute (TMI) began activities in the region in 1995 in response to a request by the Peruvian government to help formulate a management strategy for tourism in the enormous Huarascarán National Park that is 120 kilometers long and covers 340,000 hectares of the department of Ancash with a population of 260,000 people surrounding it in a buffer zone. Jorge Recharte, the director of The Mountain Institute's Andean Program, describes the park as a small country that contains the Santa river basin comprised of 52 valleys, rivers and lakes that supplies the largest amount of water to the nation due to the tropical glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca. TMI decided to work with Vicos on their communal tourism in combination with preservation of highland pasturage and reforestation. TMI's focus is always on the training of community leaders to enable them to make decisions about their own development and their work is guided by a participatory action paradigm.

Initially, the community of Vicos had wanted to approach Altamina, a mining company, for funding to build a hostel for tourists (trekkers, hikers and climbers) in the Quebrada Honda, the major valley that supplies Vicos with water from glacial sources (see water management). After a year of workshops and discussions, they abandoned that idea and agreed to initiate a pilot project on home-stay communal tourism. However they were skeptical that tourists would be interested in their daily activities and way of life.

Eight Vicosino families began construction on tourist cottages in 2000 and received the first visitors in 2001. Miriam Torres, the TMI staff person responsible for the tourism project, explains that during the planning phase in 1999, TMI invited 6 tourism directors from nearby Huaraz to Vicos to discuss the possibility of collaborating with the community on their new tourism venture. In that meeting, Vicosinos explained to the tour operators that tourists would participate in the ongoing activities of the community such as planting, harvesting, preparing the land, threshing, preparing meals with the families, and working with artisans. Vicosinos allowed that they would not cook pancakes for the tourists. Tourists would eat local foods that they helped prepare.

After that discussion, not one tour company from Huaraz was interested in the project. However, TMI contacted Crooked Trails, a non-profit community based tourism organization in the United States, who bought the first groups to Vicos and continues to operate with Miriam Torres from TMI as guide. After arriving in Lima, tourists traveling with Crooked Trails typically begin their two week tour of Peru with a 3 day visit to Vicos. In 2005, the Vicos tourism project had received 10 groups of up to 20 tourists. One group was made up of all women travelers who requested that a woman be their local guide. A Lima tour company has added Vicos to their list of destinations and the tourism website has attracted independent travelers to Vicos. Vicos is fairing better than Taquile in managing transportation and scheduling tours.

In 2005 Vicos and the communities of Humacchuco and Huaripampa in partnership with the TMI and Crooked Trails opened a travel center in Huaraz called The Yachaqui Wayi (The House of Knowledge) Responsible Travel Center. It is owned and operated by members from the mountain communities as a place where travelers and locals can come together to share and celebrate cultural diversity. The center's main aim is to provide educational tools that help tourists travel in a more respectful and responsible way. A brief stay in Huaraz also allows visitors to acclimatize to the high altitude before beginning their venture. One of the most interesting aspects of the Vicos communal tourism project is that they have assumed the role of teachers to foreign visitors which transforms the long established power dynamic between outsiders and community members. Foreigners no longer arrive to "modernize" them, but rather to learn about their culture and environment. Vicosinos initial skepticism that foreigners would be interested in their culture and environment has been replaced by increasing pride in their identity and knowledge.

As part of the global demand for ecotourism, Vicos' home-stay project will grow, but what problems and challenges are they likely to face? With an Internet presence, they have a better chance in managing the arrival of tourists than Taquile has. Vicos is likely to have internet connections soon and that will give them greater control of their tourism program. However, Vicosinos are still dependent on outside transportation, usually tour companies, to bring tourists to their region. As the number of tourists increases, Vicosinos will need new management and accounting skills, and as elsewhere in our highly mobile world, Vicosinos will face the problem of how to dispose of garbage and waste generated by tourists causing greater stress on their natural resources and fragile mountain environment.

Both Vicos and Taquile purchased the former haciendas that they had been subordinated to, but now both communities face issues concerning land titling. Taquile has made more headway in that regard. Islanders have acquired title to their communal land. Vicos has not but is actively working toward that goal. There is a national pressure to privatize the communal lands held by recognized peasant communities like Vicos and Taquile. As privatization of land increases, will the communal structures that have persisted in these two communities for centuries disappear? Also, as tourism in Vicos grows, will differentiation of wealth increase along with social stratification, individualism and privatization? How will tourism impact the community? Will competition between families for tourists, instead of cooperation and sharing, develop?