Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
BOX 6.1
Continued
to renounce control of tourism and instead boosted this activity, expanding the facil-
ities by constructing cabins and a bar-restaurant to accommodate visitors, support-
ing specific training for some of the younger members of the community and
women to provide better service to visitors, and launching a tourist package through
which visitors stay with families in the community. This initiative has prevented, for
the time being, the loss of control of the ecotourism activity.
At the same time, the cooperative has attempted to develop other activities in or-
der to diversify its sources of income and increase its resilience in the face of its
strong dependence on the palm oil industry. The community developed the Savegre
River Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, which runs programs to rescue, rehabilitate,
and reintroduce wild species, in particular the endangered great scarlet macaw (
Ara
macao
), with the support of entities, such as the Costa Rican Ministry of Nature and
Energy, as part of the payment for environmental services program. The community
has also initiated the conservation of areas of primary forest, and reforestation of
damaged areas with species such as teak, eucalyptus, gamhar, or cedar for the sus-
tainable production of timber, in collaboration with national and international or-
ganizations, including the Spanish International Cooperation and Development
Agency (AECID) and Dutch and Japanese cooperation organizations. With the sup-
port of the AECID and the Regional Government of Galicia in Spain, the coopera-
tive built the Center for Environmental Education and Training. There, it runs
training, educational, and research activities as another line of diversification.
All of these actions were carried out with the aim of restoring the environment in
which the members of Coopesilencio live. The case of Coopesilencio is an example
of a spontaneous process of “restoration” in that there was no political entity central-
izing control over their efforts. Unlike the case of the Guadiamar, Spain, where pub-
lic participation was weak, the example of Coopesilencio shows how people became
involved without any invitation from the government to participate in the restora-
tion process. The will of the people to overcome the catastrophe, combined with
their dedication to hold on to the land they won through their struggle, and their de-
termination not to renounce community organization by dividing the shared owner-
ship of the land (which has happened in other cases), has enabled them to provide a
decent life for a significant number of families self-sufficiently. In addition, commu-
nity actions, such as cleaning the destroyed palm plantation and reforestation, have
had a positive influence on the conservation and regeneration of an area that would
otherwise have become the victim of deforestation, outmigration of the local popu-
lation, and socioecological degradation as a consequence of the spreading agricul-
tural frontier. The cooperative nature of Coopesilencio has contributed to the resto-
ration of the socioecosystem in which it is located and has strengthened the
resilience of the whole system.
