website: http://www.teabelize.org
Email [email protected]
Telephone 501-702-2119,
P.O. Box 157,
Toledo District, Belize, Central America

Awards

In the Year 1996, the TEA won the Todo award for "Socially Responsible Tourism" at the worlds largest trade fair held in Berlin, Germany. The TEA was selected to be the winner because it demonstrated the maximum participation of local people living in each of the 10 villages which includes both gender and children.

The "ToDo" prize award was organize on an anual basis, by the Studienkreis fur tourismus und Entwicklung, which is an NGO based in Germany. The ToDo award is open for projects whose planning and realization ensure the involvement of different interests and

Before we won the award, the TEA had to meet the following criteria a.) raising awareness of the impact of tourism upon the local people and thier environment. 2.) participation of a broad range of local people. 3.) Good working conditions for local employers, including pay, security, hours and training. 3.) reinforcement and revival of local cultures that have been lost and those that are about to be lost. 4.) Minimization of the social and cultural damage caused by tourism. 5.) developing new partnership between the tourist industry and the local people. 6.) helping to develop socially responsible tourism in destination areas. 7.) environmental sustainability. 8.) the guarantee for the attractiveness of jobs in tourism and that majority of the tourist dollars stays in the communities.

If you want more information on this issue. You can check www.studienkreis.org or write [email protected].

Indonesia
ToDo! Winner95 www.suabali.co.id

Belize
TodoWinnder96 (see below)

Ecudaor
ToDo! Winner97 www.tropiceco.com

Germany
ToDo! Winner97 www.bregenzerwald.at

Canada
ToDo! Winner97 www.wredco.com

Australia
ToDo! Winner 98 www.aboriginalart.com.au

Tanzania
ToDo! Winner99 www.habari.co.tz/culturetours

A Speech By Reyes presented at the ToDo! Awards Ceremony

I am representing the Toledo Eco-Tourism Association in the Central American country of Belize. Our Association has ten years of experience working with nine mopan/ketchi Maya villages and one Garifuna village of Barranco in the Toledo District, traditionally known as the forgotten district. The T.E.A. operates a rustic village guesthouse and eco-trail program in each of these remote rural villages. This program from its origin was designed by our people to be locally managed and controlled, by T.E.A. groups in each of the 10 communities.

Members of the program benefit from being tour guides, meal providers, musicians, dancers,story tellers, guesthouse attendants and tour co-ordinators. Rather than detract from these important cultural activities we have seen responsible eco-tourism reviving and strengthening them. 80% of income generated from the program stays with the service providers in their village. The balance of 20% goes to administrate the central office for the administration of the project - we have local volunteers and part time paid staff working in the office and to health and education, conservation and pay for government tax. The groups of guests coming to our program are shared amongst the villages on a rotation system so that all the villages get an equal share of the income generated and other benefits from their visit. In this way we also eliminate the negative stress that can be caused when too many visitors go too often to a small village.

The T.E.A. program offers guests jungle hikes, cave exploration, milpa visits, canoeing, village tours, horse back riding, traditional music, dancing, story telling and craft lessons. Meals will be taken at different families homes allowing a greater cross section of the community for the visitor and the opportunity for more families to be involved.

Today as I stand here in front of you all I will be sharing with you three major ongoing issues we believe need to be addressed at this global conference, mainly discussing eco-tourism problems that have been derived through our associations life span and the challenges that need to be overcome with due care and attention concluding with concrete solutions that will help correct the various problems. This in turn, will help our indigenous people to know what their human and economic rights are and to exercise them practically in their society as stakeholders. By determining their rights they should be able to be full participants in planning and designing their own community developments the way they want it.

The three major points are: (1) The Guesthouse Program/marketing and promotion (2) The TEA Eco-forestry project (3) Toledo People's Eco-Park Guesthouse Program and marketing. After the we won the prestigious ToDo award estimated to be worth a million dollars in terms of advertising for the T.E.A. program, the members and supporters of T.E.A. were excited and expected a rapid increase of tourists visiting their villages. The Belize Tourist Board delegation was witness at the ToDo award ceremony in Berlin came back to Belize and wrote a press release about their trip but there was no mention about the Toledo Eco-Tourism Association winning this prestigious prize until our journalist friend wrote an article asking why the award winner was covered up?

The German T.V. crew from ZDF that was in Belize to do a special on the T.E.A. as a result of the ToDo prize was discouraged by the BTB and directed to the Northern part of Belize instead of videoing our program. The 219 members of the T.E.A. and their supporter's hard work and dedication, which won international recognition for developing and maintaining a socially responsible eco-tourism product, was neglected.

Despite the television crew being redirected the T.E.A. has still made progress.We found an NGO, Plenty International, that helped develop a eight minute video cassette, printed off more brochures and fliers. They also helped produce a web page to try and promote the program.

Although we have developed all these materials for the program we are still facing problems with the Belize Tourist Board who will not actively market or promote us. The BTB is getting millions of dollars to promote Belize but from our point of view they are focusing on expensive resort style eco-tourism and do not seem to care about our type of community based eco-tourism. Our simple rustic guesthouses do not have electricity, running water or flush toilets and even though we have hundreds of testimonies from visitors enjoying our program, the BTB still refuse to promote or help our program.Just last month, a tourist enquired about our program in the BTB office in the capital and was told they knew nothing about our program.

This is how I am asking you to help us. (1) Make written enquiries to the BTB about our program as this encourages them to promote us. With your help, they can be persuaded that our style of Eco-tourism is important to the Belize economy. (2) Anyone able to promote our organization or put us in touch with people who arrange package tours would be highly appreciated by our 219 members and their communities. (3) If anyone has Steven Spielbergs personal phone number then have a talk with me after and we can invite him to promote our program.

Eco-Forestry Project
Our villages are scattered in pristine rainforest and the granting of logging licenses around our villages in 1995-6 affected all of us. As a result the T.E.A. took part in a demonstration against the Malaysian company logging at that time and then organized several meetings with the community leaders and members of the T.E.A. and together developed an alternative method of forestry to the destructive method used by foreign companies.

Just before we visited Berlin to receive our award the Belize Government gave us a salvage license to collect the wood left to rot by a Mexican logging company. When we received the prize we were also given an anonymous donation to begin our alternative Teken-Sy Eco-Forestry system. The trees were cut into smaller pieces on site with portable saws, using locally skilled people and carried out either on their backs with a Macapal strap on their heads or by horses. This wood was then taken to a workshop and was distributed to each of the 11 TEA furniture groups. A Plenty volunteer taught the members how to make carvings and other crafts that are marketable. Within a week, several villages returned excellent products and we knew the potential was there.

Unfortunately, the forestry department demanded royalties on all the wood left by the Mexican company, usable or not and gave us a bill for $3,500bz which we could not pay and were therefore prevented us from taking any more wood. In spite of this demand, the T.E.A. got permission from the village leaders in Pueblo Viejo to cut and collect the abandoned pieces and branches of Mahogany and Cedar after the needless destructive company carried out the last of the trees from that area. These pieces of wood are distributed to the furniture groups and now they are actively making masks, carving slates and other small marketable crafts.

Also at the present time I have had several meetings with a local group of farmers who have an area of forestry that they are not using and the T.E.A. has reformed the group. With recent survey this area covers one thousand nine hundred acres of virgin jungle, it has the resources and attractions that needs to be harvested in a sustainable manner ie. Mahogany and Cedar trees, medicinal plants and other plant species and unexplored archeological sites.

The Cedar group Chairman during his visit to the office of the Ministry of Natural Resources in Belmopan was told that the government would allow a maximum period of eight months for them to save their land. With this limited time the TEA committed their association to help these farmers to (1) help members make and implement a management plan that will create income generating activities. (2) Begin to develop agricultural/eco-tourism/eco-forestry potential on their own land. (3) Market the products of the group locally, nationally and internationally over the internet (4) Create a successful model for other communities to learn from.

For the benefit of these local subsistence farmers we are asking for help in either technical assistance or finance to actually develop a concrete, realistic plan to co-manage this area with the local communities and the government of Belize. If you know of any organizations who are able to help us with this project please speak with me or contact my organization. By responding to our request you will help to save these Mayan farmers land on which they can survive rather than their land being taken away by the government and sold to foreign investors.

The Eco-Park With in Belize there is a strong belief that foreign investment is the only way for the development of tourism. As a group we have been unable to get the support of our government and powerful NGO's despite or perhaps because of the empowerment that it gives our people. The future offered to us by these people as waiters, room attendants, maids and cleaners has led us to develop an alternative plan for our area. Our aim is develop a Toledo People's Eco-Park.

Eco-tourism will be an important part of this with the Guesthouses linked by trails along which tourists can hike, canoe, cycle or horse ride and enjoy the beauty of the area without increasing traffic or pollution. The villages will continue to benefit from these tourists. But the park is much more than this.

We want to produce fair trade and organic certified products in agriculture and forestry, such as medicinal plants and furniture to export world wide, made by our people in the villages. The resources and the skills are there. What is needed is proof that there is a market demand for such products to show the government of Belize that our culture is more important to them in tact than destroyed. To do this we are asking you to give us your pledges of support for this park, letters or e-mails that tell us that you would buy such products and that there is a demand for them worldwide.