Bocas Biodiversity: EcoTours & Eco-Guide Workshops

Bocas Biodiversity: Eco-Tours & Eco-Guide Workshops by @stacebird

Bocas del Toro, Panamá

By starting my GoFundMe, I aim to take on a cohort of young Ngäbe and Afro Caribbean locals to work towards becoming eco-guides on their own homeland, sharing nature in an environmentally mindful way and keeping our human impact on these forest, mangrove and reef ecosystems at a minimum.

For five years, I’ve guided visitors in Panama’s Bocas del Toro archipelago, through tropical lowland rainforests, mangroves ecosystems, caves and Bocas’ Caribbean coral reefs.

Working shoulder to shoulder with the indigenous Ngäbe of Bocas del Toro over the years, I have gained a wider perspective of and enormous respect for this native community. And only more recently when I moved to the main island Colón have I had the opportunity an honor to get to know the Afro Caribbean community, a colorful and beautiful culture.

I’ve witnessed how these two groups of Bocas del Toro locals are so often left behind in relation to Bocas’ rapid growth in tourism and expatriate immigration and the major losses they in turn suffer is a tragedy. And that’s not to mention that the few remote indigenous schools scattered across the archipelago reach only to sixth grade and others are too costly and education is easily lost for these young people. And with tourism often requiring fluency in English, few youngsters can look forward to work in the tourism industry except in the shadows of kitchens, hotel rooms, or they might become boteros transporting folks that don't even meet eyes with them.

As tourism grows exponentially, our impact on both the locals and these lands deepens. That will hurt tourism, and the locals of Bocas del Toro, in the long run.

I need to make sure all my efforts are directed to the future and to these young people. Many of these kids need a boost in confidence and exposure in order to reach a goal such as becoming an eco-guide. English classes will help and immersing these students in English-only tours will help them reach toward growing fluency.

And while I have the confidence and passion to help a cohort of youths to reach just that, I can’t do this solo. I’m going to need your help to start through small-scale, “Eco-Guide Workshops”, dedicated to focusing on eco-guide education for local indigenous Ngäbe and Afro Caribbean youth.

Forming and shaping these eco-workshops will require a great deal of support and so I am here to unabashedly reach out to you: my friends, my family, as well as folks far and wide whom I’ve connected with online or in the field, I hope you might hear my call toward a possible improvement to a group of local Ngäbe and Afro Caribbean youths’ future through helping provide a field base and education dedicated towards giving them a possible career to work toward. One that won’t take them away from their communities and shows them that in an environmentally focused, eco-mindful, sustainable way.

With your help, I hope to provide necessities such as a means for student transportation both to and from eco-guide workshops and eco-tour locations which will require access by boat travel to and from where the day’s activities will be held and the students’ home. I’d like to hold workshops with students in a variety of places to expose them to the variety of ecosystems where we’ll be taking guests. And when we conduct ecotours, I will always have one or two young eco-guides to come along as part of their growing eco-guide experience and gain pride at their expertise in spotting wildlife.

Developing a promising cohort of young people, to ideally reach a career one day in eco-guiding, would offer them a promising future they might have never had a chance for.

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

I’ll work with the nearby Ngäbe and Afro Caribbean communities to select a small, dedicated cohort of no more than 6 (maybe 8, if funds are achieved) young people, with whom I will be actively involved in passing on the skills and knowledge required to become an environmentally-mindful, sustainability-conscious, naturalist eco-guide. These workshops will always emphasize eco-mindfulness. We will keep it small-scale, so I have time to be able to focus, in-depth, on each student.

I’d like to choose my interns based on young people from the Ngäbe and Afro Caribbean community inherently fascinated, particularly, by birds and nature and interested in pursuing a future career in eco-guiding. Many courses will consist of outdoor instruction with English, something always included as a major focus throughout field-based, tropical ecosystems ecology, conservation and education field workshops. This will all be paired with directed emphasis on a low-impact approach to guiding, with native species awareness and habitat conservation at the forefront.

And while English language practice will be a big focus overall, there’s already many things they’re already experts at– there’s no denying the incredible sharpness of their eyes in spotting wildlife, attuned to perfection to the rainforests silhouettes they’ve grown up with throughout their childhood. The true locals of this archipelago make the best guides for Bocas del Toro, to share their home land and feel proud to do it.

MY APPROACH TO ECO-GUIDING, ECOTOURISM AND TEACHING

What I term an "eco-guide" is very important to me, it is the aim to share travelers to Bocas this unique, tropical, natural world in an education-based, environmentally sustainable, low-impact, respectful approach that leaves these fragile habitats as intact and uninterrupted as possible so they can be viewed in the future onward.

As part of eco-guiding, I would like to always guide guests on Bocas Biodiversity tours also accompanied by one or two of my Ngäbe or Afro Caribbeans students, giving each one the chance to participate in ‘on-the-job’ training, paired with full English-immersion. Wildlife and plant identification with tropical ecosystem ecological field workshop studies will provide environmental education and complement a primarily field-based study of Bocas’ ecosystems ensuring topics in sustainability and conservation remain at the forefront.

Guiding is not about making sure a tourist sees perfect views of every single critter of the rainforest or reef. When wildlife isn’t “cooperating” for that stellar photograph a tourist might be keen on taking home, often, it's just best to just let it be, rather than pursue. Eco-guides will learn to dissuade an invasive approach and rather, they’ll actively practice a low-impact, sustainable, eco-centric manner to their guiding, helping us protect and sustain a species and their habitats while explaining to guests why it’s so very necessary to tread lightly. We want these ecosystems for future generations to come and they’re already struggling.

Sometimes we must simply do without the perfect photograph. Mindfulness is key in how we share these often fragile ecosystems with visitors to the archipelago both now and all the rest to follow, far into the future, so that anyone can come experience the natural side of Bocas del Toro and experience intact, healthy ecosystems.

As part of the ecological education that an eco-guide will share with guests, it will soon come clear to these visiting foreigners that these habitats have been hit hard by climate change. Drought is rampant and dries our rainforests, warms the water and bleaches our reefs. It’s important as an eco-guide to include these realities while weaving in fascinating environmental education on the ecology of these tropical systems and the need for conservation efforts in the tropical rainforests and reefs of Bocas. Hence, we always maintain an emphasis on minimizing disturbances to these fragile ecosystems already hugely impacted by we humans.

Caribbean Spiny Lobster hiding in bleached brain coral

WHY BOCAS NEEDS CONSERVATION FOCUSED ECO-GUIDING

The Ngäbe and Afro Caribbean communities have long had to massivelt adjust their historic ways to tourism and so often it leaves them behind.

The native Ngäbe and Afro Caribbeans reside in communities sprinkled across the archipelago and onto the mainland. They are a farming culture and plant crops within the forest for some of their cultivation. Around the islands, fishing is a main source of income for many Ngäbe and Afro Caribbeans, who sell to local restaurants, fish mainly caught by spearfishing and hand-lining. What is seen more and more now around the islands are fishing nets, an unsustainable means of capture which swiftly can leave the archipelago completely overfished. Lack of regulation or that of fisheries management is not the native people’s fault, they’re simply trying to survive in a commerce society that is displacing their traditional economy.

Bocas tourism is mostly run by foreigners and that money often doesn’t trickle down to the local people, certainly not in a fair manner. So they’re in a tough position because they live in their paradise home land and foreigners have discovered it, often times coming and appropriating land not knowing it belonged to somebody native. Foreigners who've bought costal land fence off their yards, an act completely against local customs that rely on beach access to walk from place to place.

Ecosystems are suffering throughout Bocas. Drought has been persistent, mainland flooding from hurricanes causes landslides, coastal erosion is rampant, deforestation, warm water coral bleaching, simple human impact, always.

Meanwhile, Bocas runs on tourism and it won’t stop running. Growth is necessary with the amount of attention this paradise archipelago has gained, but the touristic hotspot that is these islands cannot support major growth that it is undergoing and ecosystems are telling us that. Observing this ecosystem and it's birds for five years I’ve saying for years, that “the canaries in the coal mine are screaming”. This is why sustainability and focusing on building a group of young local eco-guides, tourists could be guaranteed to have the most eco-mindful of a Bocas experience and support local youths.

ENGLISH AS A MAJOR FOCUS FOR STUDENTS

One certain setback for Ngäbe is the lack of English in Ngäbe education and it's also hit or miss when it comes to Afro Caribbeans who speak English fluently. Therefore, with the increase in primarily English-speaking tourism, this language will be a major emphasis in my eco-guide workshops and tours. We will also emphasize pride in the traditional Ngäbere language and Afro Caribbean culture, as these cultures' knowledge is rooted in sustainable living in Bocas.

Therefore, in the process of becoming certified eco-guides, these young people will gain a major dose of English immersion, joining me on English-immersive tours and practicing written coursework with me as they grow into eco-guides. I will select one or two interns from my cohort to join on each tour. Paired with English classes three times a week with an emphasis on in-depth identification field courses on birds, wildlife, plants. This multifaceted education should support skill development and confidence-building toward a potential future career as an English-speaking eco-guide.

While anything you donate will be massively appreciated, I am also starting to build toward a long-term funding plan for these co-guide workshops: I will market towards nature, birding and travel companies and independent enthusiasts that might like to be guided themselves (you, perhaps?), in a thoroughly eco-focused manner through Panama; either directly to Bocas del Toro or throughout more of this rich country: from the diverse metropolitan area to the cloud forest, and perhaps a stop at the western Pacific coast all followed by a dedicated exploration of the dynamic Bocas del Toro archipelago. The percentage of each guest’s fee goes toward these young students with the added chance to sponsor a student to be able to accompany us afield.

Over my time living and guiding in Bocas del Toro, I’ve had the honor of working, playing, laughing, learning, teaching, growing and guiding together with Ngäbe who’ve now become lifelong friends with whom I would trust my life. If I can do something to help them and the local Afro Caribbean in any way, I’m in. And it would be an honor to have your help.

Funds for the Bocas Biodiversity Eco-Guide Workshops and Eco-Tours will go toward:

BIG ASKS: