Community based tourism is a way for tourists to travel like locals. Local residents (often rural and economically marginalised) invite you to experience their life in the community and share with you the secret of their land. However, traveling in rural communities does not mean a loss of comfort, our infrastructures are design in accordance with local construction techniques and adapt to meet specific needs.
ENVIRONMENT
Experiences offered in the reserve combine ecological richness & natural beauty respecting the environment. At the Pisatahua Ecolodge, renewable resources are used, and every effort is made to use local, natural and sustainable building materials. We have implemented water and energy conservation measures through: valves, toilets, and low-flow nozzles for water saving. Regarding electricity, we are generating our own electricity and limiting to the supply of household appliances.
SOCIAL
Experiences are offered by and for the local communities. In other words, Sustainable Bolivia helps to establish connections between communities and the tourists through respect and understanding. This means that Sustainable Bolivia provides the tools to develop these activities, which benefit the communities by providing them with knowledge about other cultures of the world, to which they only have access through tourists.
ECONOMIC
Another objective of Community tourism is to improve working conditions, and to give access to the people who wish to work. For example, with the funds collected, women who are engaged in the sale of food can have their own kitchen to sell directly to tourists. Jobs have been created as guides, farmers to work in the crops and to undertake own businesses for the sale of handicrafts.
As a tourist you also have a part of responsibility to collaborate so that the rule of the responsible tourist is fulfilled: “Do not take anything but photos, leave nothing but your footprints, and do not kill anything but the time “.
Our commitment to protection of the environment and the promotion of sustainable development led us to create the Aquicuana Reserve.
As it is an area of incredibly diversity and richness, we must save it as much as possible from pollution and exploitation. That’s why we collaborated with other actors to register it as a protected municipal area. Therefore, it seems obvious to us to work hand in hand with the main concern being the communities living in the Reserve (and living from it). Whether it is Warnes or San José, the communities live from subsistence farming. Therefore, it is important that they enforce the role of guardians of the Aquicuana Reserve, to protect it but also to ensure their own sustainability.
The second reason that justifies the development of this project is the activity and incomes it will generate. We believe in Riberalta’s tourism potential, especially thanks to the Aquicuana Reserve and its natural diversity. Thus, the tourism sector in this region will most likely be implemented one way or another, and we think the community must be in charge of it.
We want the communities to use this touristic potential as much as possible, through the ecotourism project we share with them. By managing and operating its activities, this project will create new jobs and present an important source of income, allowing the development of other projects and better living conditions.
Sustainable Bolivia’s role is solemnly to help them to launch the project, working on the general organisation and the promoting/communication aspects of it. For us, the final purpose of the ecotourism project is to let the communities manage the project on their own.
Relatively isolated (especially San José, which does not have access to running water and electricity) and benefiting almost nothing from their location, these communities are not in charge of their own environment, because there is no plan or project that manages and structures traffic and tourism activities across their territory.
We think it is about time to empower the communities to manage their respective land and environment, and enable them to enjoy its natural and geographical features.