Week 8 - Naomi Almanzor

Question: What is the most valuable aspect of your chosen region/city/country, and how would you brand this inherent value? What precautions can you take not to overuse/exploit/destroy this value?

            Ecotourism in Costa Rica became the main export and source of foreign exchange, employing 10% of Costa Ricans through small-scale, rurally-based businesses (Jones & Spadafora, 2016). The building of the Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Sciences (CATIE) led to the establishment of other institutions in both Costa Rica and the US, which fostered discussion and understanding of Costa Rica’s biodiversity, and encouraged conservation activism. This helped to create a foundation of awareness of Costa Rica’s environment along with a mindset of eco-friendliness that contributed to the embracing and success of ecotourism. It was also through the steps of activism taken by environmental researchers that led to the start of Monteverde as an ecotourism spot (Jones & Spadafora, 2016). It can almost be said that Costa Rica’s rebranding into an ecotourism hot spot occurred as a result of a rebranding of rainforests themselves, gaining the image of beautiful and diverse landscapes as reports from NGOs about these areas sparked the interest of people not in the life science professions.

In terms of possible areas of improvement to Costa Rica, even though pesticide levels were found to be below dangerous levels, and thus shown to not be the direct cause of high fish mortality rates in the Sixaola region, more studies on these affected communities would be beneficial to reveal the full nature of the problem and show the need and possible methods for a solution, in a way that would not adversely affect the Sixaola peoples in an invasive fashion (Polidoro & Morra, 2016).

A valuable aspect of the UC Davis community would be the close and comfortable college-town feel, as it provides a welcoming and well-connected area that fosters an environment of friendliness, helping incoming students adjust to the college life with ease. Given that the team behind Femme Fam are all female UC Davis students as well, it would be very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that our being part of the audience we aim for would give us a large enough justification to make a claim for the rest of the population. Checking in with and consulting the students and faculty and their opinion on the current state of sociability within the community and on improvements made after the integration of new products would be crucial in avoiding the exploitation of these values.

My Question: In light of the tourists that lean toward ‘soft’ nature, are there ways for a nation to have its aspects such as its nature or culture be economically beneficial without sacrificing so much of its authenticity for the sake of the audience it is geared towards?

Sources:

Image: https://www.horizontes.com/administrator/media/page/facebook_feed_large_2.jpg

Jones, G., & Spadafora, A. (2016). Entrepreneurs and the Co-Creation of Ecotourism in Costa Rica.

Polidoro, B. A., & Morra, M. J. (2016). An ecological risk assessment of pesticides and fish kills in the Sixaola watershed, Costa Rica. Environ Sci Pollut Res, 5983-5991.