Amazon Interactive
The Ecotourism Game
Attract more tourists
The four of you agree that you donot want tourists staying in your homes more than once a week, so you decideto build a tourist compound. You leave your crops for several weeks toclear a patch of forest and build a simple tourist cabin. The other peopleof Pangayacu watch with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. The cabinis one kilometer (half a mile) from the center of Pangayacu. A few touristsare disappointed that they can't stay with a Quichua family, but most aresatisfied. Several tourist groups visit Pangayacu every week now, stayingfor two to four days. They enjoy seeing the rainforest and learning aboutQuichua c
ulture,such as the blowguns which were once used for hunting.
The money coming in has paid off all the debts you acquiredto buy the outboard motor for the canoe, the cabin furnishings, and otherexpenses.
Now that the rest of the people of Pangayacu see how muchmoney tourists bring, they are more interested in the ecotourism project.At the next community meeting, Mariano suggests making the project communal,so everyone works and benefits from it. Pedro and Fernando want nothingof this, saying they built the tourism business up and deserve to benefitfrom it most. Agustin, however, would like to include the rest of the community.He says it is the only way the project will work in the long run.
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| You don't work much in the fields nowadays, and have even let some plantationsbecome overgrown with secondary foreest. | Income from tourism comes in steadily, and you no longer need to sell cropsin the market. |
What do you think?
Keep the project in the hands of thesmall group
Open the project to the entire community
