Dear Guests,

It is with great pleasure and much anticipation that we introduce ourselves to you as the new owners of Finca Esperanza Verde. We are forever grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of a business that embodies all the principles of ecotourism: Nature conservation, community outreach programs and an education for tourists about the surrounding natural and cultural environment. We plan to continue the great work established by Sister Communities of San Ramon over 13 years ago by supporting their volunteer programs that are helping alleviate poverty in this region of Nicaragua.

Finca Esperanza Verde is a work in progress, striving to create a destination for all those seeking adventure in ways that can preserve the fragile ecosystems of the environment and make a difference in the lives of the people of the communities that surround it.

At Finca Esperanza Verde, we know that positive change comes from within. Here we are working on solutions for healthy living, environmental wellness and renewal of spirit. Our plan is to reach out to those of you who share our values and commitment to the well-being of people and planet and to invite you to bring your programs to FEV and let us be your host and venue. We will offer you and your group a holistic sensory experience in an inspiring and nurturing environment. Come join us soon and experience our little paradise in the Northern Highlands of Nicaragua!

Your hosts,

Vivianne and Andrew

Article in UU World Magazine

‘What ecotourism should be’

An organic coffee farm and ecotourism lodge founded by a Unitarian Universalist couple is a model for just and sustainable tourism.
By David Zucchino
Fall 2011 8.15.11

The dirt track bends hard to the left over a drainage ditch in the rural village of Yucul in the central highlands of Nicaragua. The rutted road continues up a lush mountainside, past banana plants heavy with fruit and tree canopies inhabited by howler monkeys and sloths, to an outpost high in the rain forest. Carved out of the mountain 4,000 feet up, the setting offers spectacular views of the Dariense mountain range and the green valley far below.

This is Finca Esperanza Verde, a unique experiment in ecotourism and local empowerment. Part organic coffee farm and part tourist lodge, the finca—Spanish for farm—has been spearheaded by a Unitarian Universalist couple with dreams of helping local Nicaraguans find profitable and sustainable ways to share their culture with visiting tourists.

The tourism project was conceived by Lonna and Richard Harkrader, members of Eno River Unitar­ian Universalist Fellowship in Durham, North Carolina. It grew out of a sister community project the Harkraders helped lead in 1993 that linked churches in Durham with the Nicaraguan town of San Ramón, eleven miles down a twisting mountain road from the finca. When three other North Carolina cities joined the Durham–San Ramón partnership, they became Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua (SCSRN). The nonprofit plows income from ecotourism and organic-certified shade grown coffee back into the local economy. The chief attractions are stunning scenery, hiking trails, exotic birds, and butterflies—but also the skills and cultural riches of Nicaraguans themselves.

The Harkraders and board members of Sister Communities bought an abandoned forty-acre coffee farm on the mountainside in 1997. Using local materials and workers, the Harkraders and volunteers added a lodge and sleeping cabins for twenty-six visitors, paid for in part by donations from Rotary clubs in North Carolina and other contributors. They have since expanded the site into a 265-acre nature preserve with a very light ecological footprint.

Richard, an architect and solar builder, designed a micro hydro generator powered by a mountain spring that also provides natural drinking water to guests’ cabins. The hydro system and photovoltaic panels on the lodge roof power the finca.

Finca Esperanza Verde—Green Hope Farm—employs thirty local residents who are provided steady jobs with attractive benefits, an anomaly in rural Nicaragua. They get health insurance, retirement benefits, and a month’s bonus at Christmas. Unlike many tourism workers in Central America and the Caribbean, they are employed year-round, not just seasonally.

The staff members teach visiting tourists about Nicaraguan culture, arts, food, history, nature, and wildlife. The finca’s focus on learning from the locals is what distinguishes it from other tourist operations, and from most other ecotourism ventures. Sister Communities, whose members have visited the finca and San Ramón to build friendships with Nicar­aguans, calls the trips “cultural immersion ecotours.”

Visitors hike virgin trails and relax over sumptuous finca meals. At the same time, they are also shown Nicaragua by Nicaraguans. When I visited in February with twelve other Americans, including several members of the Eno River fellowship, we were immersed in Nicaraguan culture. Like most visitors, we split our time between the finca and homestays with San Ramón residents.

In town, there were cooking and jewelry-making demonstrations, dancing, folk music, drinks of local rum and beer, a craft fair, and a children’s dance troupe. At the finca, we took bumpy rides in the back of pickup trucks to a coffee farm and a picnic beside a mountain stream. We took nature hikes, went bird-watching, and explored a butterfly reserve.

“Not your typical Mai Tai vacation,” said Jennifer Albright, a Durham resident who was presented with a surprise cake by a finca cook one evening to celebrate her sixty-first birthday.

Another cook, Reina Medrano, showed us Americans how to make tortillas as we took turns cranking a grinder handle and shaping tortillas. Nature guide Humberto Antonio Picado led visitors on mountain hikes, pointing out ancient ferns, reciting the Latin names of butterflies, and detailing the nesting habits of local birds. He also spotted howler monkeys and sloths that visitors didn’t notice on their own. He knows all about the finca’s orchids and tree frogs, too.

In San Ramón, Jesenia Diaz Aviles, a local artisan, showed us how to make raw paper for handmade cards and notebooks. Freddie Rivas, a local jewelry maker, gave a class on creating jewelry from local seeds. And Javier Martínez, a coffee farmer who has learned to grow certified organic coffee, led us through a “coffee cupping,” sampling four local brews.

The Nicaraguans are paid for their time. Among them was Doña Marina Escorcia Pineda, a longtime San Ramón resident who taught an hour-long session on local history. Paid, too, were five local musicians who trudged up the dirt road from Yucul village to play Nicaraguan folk songs around a bonfire one night. One musician persuaded several American visitors to dance around the fire.

María Soledad Avila Escorcia, who has hosted finca tourists in her tidy bungalow in San Ramón the past twelve years, said townspeople are eager to share day-to-day life with visitors.

“The way Richard and Lonna have set things up, visitors are able to see the way people in San Ramón really live. They’re not just tourists—they’re houseguests,” she said.

Through the finca and ecotourism, the Harkraders and Sister Communities have transformed the local community. Before the finca was built, nearby San Ramón had no hotels, no craft sales, no cafés, and virtually no tourism. Many local roads were unpaved, and its water and sewer systems were a wreck.

“The word tourist wasn’t in their vocabulary,” Lon­na recalled. “It was a totally new concept. Every­body asked: ‘Why would anyone come to San Ramón?’”

Today, San Ramón is visited by tourists from the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe. It has two boutique hotels, a backpacker hostel, several guesthouses, two bar-cum-cafés, a local tourist guide club, and regular crafts sales. The improvements were created and are maintained by local residents, with donations from Sister Communities and others.

The nonprofit has donated money for local communities to build six schools, and other donors provide $500 a year to a dozen rural schools. It has helped fund a maternity center, a home for the elderly, and a guide club run by local teens.

Richard designed the town baseball stadium. Sister Communities, along with Rotary International and Southwest Durham Rotary, donated money to renovate and expand the town’s water system.

“If you build something beautiful, they will come,” Lonna said as she watched local children perform a dance recital inside the tidy little library.

Unlike Westerners who direct most other aid projects, Sister Communities doesn’t dictate who or what receives funds. It doesn’t build projects itself. The nonprofit asks local residents to identify their most pressing needs, then gives grants to groups and communities to run programs and build schools—and leaves it to residents to provide sweat equity.

“It builds a sense of ownership,” Richard said. The goal, he said, is to eliminate the paternalism that dominates many well-intentioned aid projects.

The Harkraders are hardy do-it-yourself types. On their first visit to Nic­aragua in 1990, they drove from North Carolina with their two daughters, then 10 and 14. They stayed in Central America for eleven months, donated their car, and flew back home.

In 1997, while building the coffee farm and finca, the Harkraders and volunteers hauled in most provisions in their checked luggage—dishes, towels, linens, and the solar panels for the lodge roof. Early on, visitors and volunteers carried the finca’s green coffee beans home in their suitcases. “We were inventing it as we went along,” Richard said.

Today, Counter Culture Coffee in Durham imports the finca’s coffee beans, roasts them, and provides coffee at cost to Sister Communities. The coffee is sold at Unitarian Universalist congregations, raising up to $23,000 a year. Income from coffee, ecotours, and other tourism covers the cost of operations at the finca—and also funds community development projects.

The finca hires local pickers to harvest coffee beans. It also pumps money into the local economy by buying chickens, eggs, milk, beer, and other products from local vendors. The staff makes juices, jams, marmalades, salads, and other foods from fruits and vegetables grown organically on the finca.

Two years ago, Lonna said, the finca and ecotourism brought $180,000 into the local economy, not counting purchases of food, crafts, and gifts by visiting tourists.

“This is what ecotourism should be. I fell in love with this place the first time I saw it,” said Alex van der Zee Arias, 34, who was hired in February to manage the finca. Van der Zee has managed hotels in Europe and South America and helped run his family’s coffee farm about twenty minutes from San Ramón. But he decided to work at Finca Esperanza Verde because it’s unlike any other tourism project he has ever encountered.

“After working in mass tourism and big hotels, I’ve found the perfect ecotourism model here,” he said.

The finca’s tourism intern is Ian Smith-Overman, 25, a recent college graduate who visited the finca as a child with his Unitarian Universalist family. He’s a fluent Spanish speaker with a passion for Central and South American culture and history.

“What makes this place special is its openness, its shared commitment to the environment—just the whole concept of the human family,” Smith-Overman said.

Praise for the finca’s approach doesn’t just come from people affiliated with it. The Small Enterprise Education and Promotion (SEEP) Network, a Wash­ington, D.C., nonprofit, said of the ecolodge after an assessment visit in 2008: “Finca Esperanza Verde has received international recognition as a model for poverty alleviation through sustainable tourism . . . through an economic model that is self-sustaining.”

The finca won a $20,000 Sustainable Tourism Award for Conservation from Smithsonian magazine. It was named best ecolodge by the Nicaraguan Institute of Tourism and was selected as the model project exemplifying poverty alleviation through sustainable tourism by the World Tourism Organiza­tion, a United Nations agency. The Guardian newspaper in London ranked it number one for green tourism in Nicaragua.

Picado, 34, the finca’s nature guide, said he knew little about local plants and wildlife—and even less about ways to protect the environment—when the finca hired him as a coffee worker ten years ago. By learning from visiting biologists and ornithologists, he has emerged as a leading local expert on the forest’s ecology.

He’s also a butterfly expert, thanks to years spent studying the creatures at the finca’s butterfly house, home to a dozen varieties. The finca has sold butterfly pupae to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham—along with some of the leafcutter ants that entertain guests with the intricate trails they build to transport bits of leaves.

“I’m proud to share my knowledge with our visitors,” Picado said. “They seem to appreciate it, which makes me feel like I’ve been successful in life.”

The Harkraders, too, have built an impressive base of local knowledge. Lonna knows the name of every local villager, it seems. Richard, who stomps the finca grounds with a bird guide stuffed in his pocket, can declaim on the distinctions between the orange-bellied trogon and the collared trogon, two of the finca’s 250 bird species.

For the Harkraders, the finca has provided an op­portunity to apply their UU values. They are reflected in the commitment to the interdependent web of life, the embrace of the inherent worth and dignity of Nicaraguans, and faith in the collective spirit.

“We are all people of the world—we are all one family,” Lonna said one evening after asking staff members to introduce themselves and talk about their lives. “I often think how lucky I am in my life to be part of something that has had such a big impact—that’s brought the culture of Nicaragua right into the lives of visitors,” she said.

Around the campfire one night, an elderly guitarist, Don Carmelo, prefaced his band’s performance by thanking the Harkraders for “the shared human family” they had brought together at the finca.

The finca is now so successful that the Harkraders encouraged the Sister Communities board to put it up for sale in May. The project “is a large business now and difficult for volunteers to manage,” Lonna said. It will operate as usual through May 2012, she said, with several ecotourism trips booked and space available for other visitors.

No matter who takes over, Lonna said, Sister Communities will continue to provide visitors with what she called “a dynamic cultural immersion experience,” including visits to the same social justice projects in the area.

The Rev. Deborah Cayer, lead minister at the Eno River fellowship, said she was struck by the Hark­raders’ unique, inclusive vision when she first heard about the finca. “It was a very different model—an empowerment model and a partnership model,” she said. “It’s a friendship model, seeing people not as ‘those poor people,’ but valuing them and understanding how to open a door for a brother or sister.”

As part of the group that visited the finca in February, Cayer listened as Lonna argued with several local parents who kept their children out of school, saying they were needed to help out at home. Lonna told them, passionately, that every child has a fundamental human right to an education—and the parents listened.

“It was an argument between neighbors, a passionate discussion between equals,” Cayer said. “They’re all in it together. That’s community. Being able to see their inherent worth and dignity, and to respect it—that’s a beautiful thing.”

http://www.uuworld.org/life/articles/186480.shtml

“Eduardo, toucan! Vienen aqui!” Come here! Omar Quintero’s pleas jolt me back to focus. I’m beat. Late yesterday, Smalling and I drove south from El Jaguar’s misty cloudforests toward Managua, past beneficios where coffee beans dried on large concrete platforms and tiny villages with mud homes hunkered under banana trees. We arrived at Finca Esperanza Verde at sunset.

I scan the ridges of the Cordillera Dariense but see nothing. “Mas alto,” Quintero instructs me. Look higher. I focus in on a distant ridge and there is the Central American rainforest’s signature bird—the keel-billed toucan—showy and exuberant, as if all of the colors and drama of the tropics were distilled into the features of a single animal.

Opened in 2000, this ecolodge was founded on an ethos of ecological coffee farming. Scientists study golden-winged warblers among 265 acres of steep, forested slopes and shade-grown-coffee patches that were once cattle pasture. Some tourists plumb five long trails in search of orchids; others come for the monkeys and tree sloths. There are more than 150 bird species here. The lodge’s cabin rooms are built from handmade bricks, and the property protects the watersheds of seven springs and generates power through solar panels and a micro-hydro generator. Drawing 1,300 tourists each year, Finca Esperanza Verde has chalked up seven international ecotourism awards or distinctions.

And just like the golden-winged warblers, summer tanagers, and American redstarts that winter in its woods, the farm has strong links to North Carolina. In 1993 five Durham, North Carolina, churches formed Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua (SCSRN). Church members had spent years protesting the U.S.-backed Contra war of the 1980s. After the hostilities, visits to Nicaragua’s San Ramón region led to a more personal commitment. Stateside, the group sold Nicaraguan coffee in church sales to support various food distribution and clean water projects, but there were bigger dreams. “The poverty there was just overwhelming,” says Lonna Harkrader, a former Peace Corps volunteer who served as executive director for the SCSRN from its inception until 2009. “We felt there was more we could do.”

From that despair grew the idea of an ecolodge that would employ local workers in sustainable-coffee cultivation and plow its profits back into the community. In 1997 the group bought an abandoned coffee farm on a remote hilltop northeast of Matagalpa. There was no water, electricity, or telephone service. All around were plunging cliffs and tiny wattle-and-daub homes clinging to narrow, muddy roadsides. The closest bus stop was an hour’s walk away. “What you see now—the coffee, the lushness—was all barren,” Harkrader says. “It had been classic slash-and-burn agriculture for so long that nothing would grow on it.”

That’s hard to imagine. Smalling monitors golden-winged warblers at a dozen sites scattered across Finca Esperanza Verde, and we take off after an early breakfast to make the rounds. Just 50 footsteps from the dining pavilion, I am cocooned in cathedral forests of ceiba trees, most draped in veils of green philodendrons. Streams tumble in head-high waterfalls, across mossy rocks and under tree ferns forming primeval shapes.

We break into the dappled sun of a coffee patch, and Smalling wedges the MP3 player in the crook of a tree. The loop of golden-winged warbler territorial calls was recorded in North America, so, oddly, we hear the calls of crows and indigo buntings as well.

Soon a pair of male golden-wings zips into the nearby trees, chipping vigorously. I watch one bird closely as he hops from tree branch to tree branch, head flitting this way and that. He stands nearly erect, fluffing his feathers. The next moment he’s rubbing his bill against the branch, first one side and then the other, declaring this is his turf. “That’s called bill swiping,” Smalling laughs. “He’s got all this adrenaline pumping through his system, but he can’t find anyone to take it out on.” I can’t help but think that he’s sharpening his rapier. Ten feet away one of my home state’s most threatened birds is having a full-blown hissy fit.

On the edge of a coffee patch, I can hear the zing of machetes downslope as unseen coffee workers chop at the weeds and shrubs growing between the rows of coffee plants. Though my visit is at the peak of bird numbers for these woodlands, I have just missed the height of the coffee harvest. Still, a few pickers move through the groves, baskets of red berries slung around their waists, using fingertips and the palms of their hands to snip each berry, one by one.

As at El Jaguar, coffee plays an important role in keeping golden-winged warblers on the land. At many sites the birds hunt insects in the dead, dangling leaves and among the tangled vines and shrubs that grow up in sunlit forest gaps, while small patches of shade-grown coffee support the mix of canopy and undergrowth the warblers seek.

When Finca Esperanza Verde was first training locals to guide birders, the learning curve was as steep as the region’s rugged mountains themselves. “We had to teach them to go slowly,” Harkrader tells me. “To pull out the field guide, to talk about the birds. They were just zooming people through the woods!”

For years Humberto Picado worked in Nicaragua’s coffee fields. Today he’s one of Finca Esperanza Verde’s most accomplished birding guides and a proud educator. “The change is better, to leave the coffee,” he tells me, grinning. “More birds. And no mucho machete.”

The next day he, Smalling, and I are hiking down a tiny stream flowing under dense primary forest, when Picado suddenly holds up his hand, halting our progress. In front of us, the ground is alive. We’ve stumbled into an ant swarm; untold thousands of the insects flow across the ground, covering trees and leaves. They’re marching up and down saplings and vines and forming bridges of themselves to cross the stream. Ferreting among them, bills flashing this way and that, is a crazy-quilt collection of ravenous birds eating the insects. Familiar species hunt wingtip to wingtip with exotic tropical residents. A Louisiana waterthrush feeds near a gray-headed tanager. A Wilson’s warbler stabs at the insects beside red-throated ant-tanagers. Next to me Picado sits on his haunches and thumbs through a worn copy of A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica, the closest thing there is to a Nicaraguan field guide. Five feet away, Smalling is exuberant. Within minutes he has three new life-list birds: the rufous-breasted ant-thrush, the buffy tuftedcheek, and the blue-black grosbeak, a cardinal-sized bird the color of an indigo bunting.

And there’s a golden-winged warbler in the mix, as well. The bird stalks among the ants 40 feet away, and I watch it through my binoculars. For a moment I imagine that bird back home, flitting through the highbush blueberries of the southern Appalachians, yellow epaulets golden in the rising sun. My notion is as cheering as the sight of Picado, his head buried in a bird book, his face lit with a smile.

2011 Condé Nast Traveler World Savers Awards Application

Resorts, Lodges, Camps, etc.

February 21, 2011

Section A:

Name of property:    Finca Esperanza Verde

Ecolodge and Organic Coffee Farm

Location (city, state, country): San Ramon, Matagalpa, Nicaragua

Website address:    www.fincaesperanzaverde.org

Contact person—Name and title: Alex van der Zee Arias, Manager

Address:   SCSRN apartado 28, Mataglapa, Nicaragua

E-mail:  

Phone number:  505-2772-5003

Name and title of individual filling out application (if different from above):

Richard Harkrader, Treasurer SCSRN

Architect and Project Manager of FEV

1320 Shepherd St, Durham NC 27707

919-489-1656

Note: The Manager of FEV, the Director of SCSRN and Board members of

SCSRN contributed.

Statistics

Number of units:  26 total – 3 double rooms, 2 cabins for 1-6 guests, 1 cabin

for 1-8 guests

Average annual occupancy:  18%

Year property opened:  2000

Page 2 of 19

FEV Mission Statement

Finca Esperanza Verde (FEV) Ecolodge promotes sustainable tourism

by supporting the local economy with well paid jobs, by providing

opportunities for local entrepreneurship to flourish, by promoting

conservation of natural resources through reforestation and organic vegetable

and coffee cultivation, and by providing opportunities for visitors to enjoy the

local culture.

On FEV’s web site http://www.fincaesperanzaverde.org/video-bank

there are numerous videos available. Discover San Ramón, the last video in

the list, is especially good at telling the FEV story.

FEV’s owner, Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua (SCSRN),

is a 501-C3 non-profit based in Durham, North Carolina. FEV is a central

part of the SCSRN mission to promote economic development in San

Ramón and to bring North Americans to Central America to experience

and learn about the reality of life in the developing world. Since starting

ecotours in 2000, FEV has donated 10% of ecotour GROSS income to local

projects.

Many of the donations made to FEV’s non-profit owner, SCSRN, come

from people who have visited FEV on an ecotour and returned home

inspired to support projects in San Ramón. The constant flow of visitors to

FEV replenishes the list of donors. Our motto, “Supporting a rural

Nicaraguan community one visit at a time,” is very apt and born out year

after year.

Page 3 of 19

Section B: Preservation—Environmental and/or Cultural

Do you have any programs to preserve the environment (particularly through use

of water and electricity, and disposal of waste), or to protect cultural sites near

your property? If so, how do you monitor those programs, and what results can you

report?

FEV covers 245 acres or 100 hectares. The land was carefully assembled

over 10 years to:

• Protect and gain control of the 7 streams that originate on the property

and the watershed they create from deforestation and indiscriminant

development. FEV has been recognized by the state capital, Matagalpa,

as providing significant benefits to the public water supply of the

120,000 people the city serves.

• Create a large enough area to be a wildlife and bird sanctuary, and

• Connect the different parcels purchased and eliminate out parcels.

FEV has voluntarily established a 47 acre Private Forest Reserve

registered with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources

(MARENA). FEV is 4 km from the Biosphere Reserve home to the indigenous

pine tree Tecum Umani, a tree that is native in only two places in the world.

Tecum Umani pine trees are an important species in the reforestation of FEV.

Please give any examples of specific environmental programs and what they have

achieved. Examples might include energy efficiency techniques that have reduced

the use of nonrenewable resources by 25%, or waste water management systems.

FEV is a model shade grown, organic coffee farm that has carefully

preserved its forests and planted more than 15,000 native trees to create

outstanding habitat for birds, animals and clean water for surrounding

communities.

Do you use environmentally friendly cleaning products?

Yes, FEV is a certified organic coffee farm and we do not use

chemicals, insecticides or pesticides other than bleach occasionally when

washing sheets.

Do you measure energy consumption? What steps are you taking to reduce overall

consumption, and what are you doing to encourage the use of renewable energy?

FEV is off the electric grid and powered independently by numerous,

small solar Photovoltaic (PV) electric systems, small hydro, wood and a

small amount of propane. The lodge is powered by a combination 500kW

solar and 500kW small hydro electric system that provide energy for 2

highly efficient refrigerators, LED lights, cell phones and radios. The

cooking in the lodge kitchen is done on one wood and two propane cooking

Page 4 of 19

stoves. Each cabin has LED lights powered by a separate small PV system

that includes a charge controller and battery. There is a central shower

building that has wood-heated hot water. Both the kitchen and showers use

an efficient, locally produced wood stove purchased in 2008 that has cut

wood consumption by 50%.

Do you measure water consumption, and what steps are you taking to decrease

overall consumption?

FEV has its own spring fed, gravity water system. The water quality is

excellent and it is tested for purity annually. Because we have a continual

source of free water and electricity, and there are no meters for either, we do

not measure consumption.

Please share with us any metrics you have that show a decrease in consumption of

water and/or energy.

When guests arrive they are given an orientation that includes the

importance of using water and electricity wisely. There are reminders next to

water faucets and light switches to conserve these resources.

Are you measuring greenhouse gas emissions from all sources controlled by your

business?

No, we are currently looking for an intern to help us evaluate if our

reforestation and composting efforts have off set our carbon emissions from

the propane used in cooking and diesel used in our 2 pick up trucks.

What procedures have you implemented to reduce and/or offset carbon emissions

to work toward carbon neutrality?

FEV uses fossil fuels in its 2 diesel pickup trucks and in two of the

three cook stoves. This carbon release is being offset by the extensive

reforestation in areas that had been deforested by previous owners for

grazing cattle. To reduce travel to far away commercial markets and to

provide wholesome and high quality food, FEV has a large organic garden

that supplies most of the vegetables, all the bananas and many other fruits.

Of course FEV produces all of its coffee.

Are you treating your wastewater, including gray water, and reusing it where

possible? How?

Yes. FEV has a septic system with numerous holding tanks where

solids are digested and an extensive leach field where the treated water

nourishes one of the coffee plantations. The depulping and washing of our

coffee during the annual harvest is done in our unique “beneficio” (wet

mill) that uses very little water and then retains and treats all of it on site.

Page 5 of 19

Please describe your solid waste management plan. How much of your waste is

recycled? What quantitative goals have you set to minimize waste that is not

reused or recycled?

FEV’s goal is to take no waste to a landfill. Currently two 30 gallon

bags of solid waste go to a land fill weekly. To reduce solid waste FEV:

• Grows most of its food in its own gardens or purchases it from

neighboring homesteads,

• Buys local products and returns the containers,

• Uses cloth napkins and towels and not paper,

• Feeds all paper wrappers, cardboard and organic wastes to our 7 large

worm composting bins. The compost is used in FEV’s cultivation of

organic coffee.

• Recycles all glass and metals.

Describe the location of the property. How was this site chosen? How much land

does the property own? Is it protected, or reserved for sustainable uses? Is the site

surrounded by protected land?

FEV covers 245 acres or 100 hectares. The land was assembled over a

period of 10 years and comprises an entire watershed up to the ridgeline of 7

streams. Forty seven (47) acres of FEV have been voluntarily registered with

the Nicaraguan government as a Private Forest Reserve. 73% of FEV is

forested.

Please list any examples of sustainable building methods used at the property.

All of FEV’s buildings are designed to use local sustainably made and

harvested materials – from the stone foundations to the hand made brick walls

and local, pine roof structure. The buildings are open to their hilly sites and

encourage visitors to be outdoors and explore. The rooms are comfortably

small and a minimum amount of construction materials were used to build

them. Each cabin has an outdoor patio with rocking chairs set in a nicely

landscaped garden of native trees designed to attract wildlife. By using rustic

tree trunks harvested on the farm for the roof support columns, the Lodge

and dining area are open on three sides allowing guests a remarkable 100km

view across distant mountain range.

Do you use native species for landscaping and restoration, and take measures to

avoid the introduction of invasive alien species?

FEV does not plant non-native species. It carefully chooses species of

native trees and plants to provide shade and nitrogen for the coffee plants

and to attract and feed birds and wildlife. Early in the farm’s development

several wildlife biologists and herpetologists spent months cataloging FEV’s

flora and fauna and making recommendations for improving habitat. A

result of the close relationship scientist have with FEV is that FEV was the

Page 6 of 19

first sanctioned bird banding station in Nicaragua. FEV has created a 35

page Interpretive Trail and Plant Guide that catalogs FEV flora especially

orchids, heliconia and trees, and includes photographs for easy

identification.

Do you contribute to the support of biodiversity conservation, including

supporting natural protected areas and areas of high biodiversity value? Please

describe.

Yes extensively, see responses to other questions.

Please give any examples of specific cultural programs and what they have

achieved. Examples might include relationships with local artisans who are able to

earn a living by selling their crafts through your property or efforts to protect or

restore historical monuments.

FEV is a champion of local culture:

• FEV organizes each year 4 to 8 “Cultural Immersion Tours” (aka

ecotours) of 10 to 18 people each tour. These groups come to FEV

and San Ramón for 7 days and are introduced to the remarkable

landscape and culture of Nicaragua. A typical group spends 4 days at

FEV and 3 days in San Ramón with Guest House families that FEV

has recruited and trained. This is a “hands on” experience and many

guest are in tears when their trip is over and it’s time to return to the

airport. See

http://www.fincaesperanzaverde.org/reservations/ecotours-

travelingwithleader

• In 2008, ‘09 and ‘10, FEV initiated and sponsored a local dance

festival in San Ramón. See

http://www.fincaesperanzaverde.org/video-bank “Supported

Projects”. We noticed that capable, local dance groups were being

ignored at official events in San Ramón in favor of dance groups

from the state capital, Matagalpa. Since the dance festivals began,

local officials now invite local groups to perform! The dance festival

also inspires younger people to get involved in a dance group.

• FEV will sponsor a festival in 2011 to honor local people who are

knowledgeable about the history of San Ramón. The founder of the

town’s elementary school, the founder of the municipal library, the

woman whose grandparents elevated San Ramón to a county level

government, the engineer who directed the renovation and expansion

of the town’s water system (financed by FEV and a North Carolina

Rotary Club and Rotary International) will speak along with many

old timers.

• FEV has nurtured numerous local music groups. With loans from

FEV and payments for playing for FEV guests these local musicians

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have improved their presentations, instruments and music quality

and earned significant income.

• An ecotour group to FEV in 2000 donated musical instruments to

SCSRN’s partner organization to start a music program in San

Ramón. The band now operates independently and the band leader

runs a music school for children.

• FEV and its owner, SCSRN,  started and continually support

painting classes for young people in San Ramón. FEV has recruited

and hosted major Nicaraguan artists who have provided master

classes for the young artists.  FEV also organizes craft and art sales

during its weeklong ecotours.

• In 2004 FEV requested that an ecotour visitor who is a frequent

chess player and promoter bring chess sets and chess instructions in

Spanish to FEV. This visitor taught several workers at FEV to play

and FEV organized a chess event at the San Ramón Library. The

result is an active chess club at the San Ramón Library and frequent

chess matches at FEV between visitors and FEV staff.

Do you contribute to the protection of local historical, archeological, or culturally

and spiritually important properties and sites, and how?

FEV has no archeological or cultural attractions nearby. FEV has made

a name for itself on the merits of its dedication to restoring and preserving

its forest habitat, extensive trail system and flora and fauna. FEV is also

known for its business practices of paying fair salaries and benefits and

providing opportunities for local small businesses to flourish.

Do you allow access to these sites by local residents?

NA

Do you use elements of local art, architecture, or cultural heritage in your

operations, design, decoration, food, or shops?

Local art and murals adorn the walls of all the rooms and cabins at

FEV. The buildings resemble the local architecture and are constructed of

local, hand made bricks, bamboo ceilings and painted metal roofs. FEV has

a gift shop where local crafts, chocolate, honey and paintings are featured.

Local food is featured at FEV both in the meals served and in cooking

classes FEV gives to all ecotour participants and offers to all guests. The

classes are:

• The traditional Nicaraguan Kitchen where guests make their own

tortillas from grinding the corn, forming tortillas by hand to cooking

them over a wood fire. A second part of the class is roasting and

grinding coffee over a wood fire.

• Making the Nicaraguan nacatamal where guests make this

traditional, national dish and then share a meal of nacatamales with

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their Guest House families.

• Cupping coffee at a traditional family farm where the farm owner

teaches the group about the cupping process used by buyers to

evaluate coffee prior to offering to purchase it. The farmer learned

this process at FEV from FEV’s US-based coffee buyer.

Do you provide information about the natural surroundings, local culture, and

cultural heritage to your customers, as well as explain appropriate behavior while

visiting natural areas, living cultures, and cultural heritage sites?

• Cultural exchange is a major focus of FEV’s ecotours and the

services we offer all guests. We strive to make the cross-cultural

experience a positive one for both FEV visitors and staff. The staff

developed  personal conduct policies in accordance with local

customs and culture in open-forum meetings.  FEV staff encourage

visitors to remember that they are visiting a humble rural culture,

that their actions reflect not only upon themselves but on the image

that the local people have of foreigners in general.

In addition to the focus on food described above, the ecotour groups:

• Visit a local baseball game on Sundays where entire rural

communities are gathered.

• FEV has a 65-page “Interpretive Trail and Plant Guide” to orient

FEV guests to our tropical forest habitat.

• FEV’s web page is an example of how we gently orient people to the

local culture: “Please ask permission before taking photographs of

people. Be prepared to wait while people change their clothes and fix

their hair. If you get double photos when you return, we will attempt

to give copies to the people you took pictures of.”

• FEV provides a “Study Packet” full of valuable information on local

history, politics and culture to all our 7 day “cultural immersion”

ecotours.

• The FEV lodge has a library area with numerous books available to

guests on birds, flora, butterflies, Nicaraguan authors and cultural

events.

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Section C:   Wildlife Conservation

Do you have any programs to protect the wildlife near your property? If so, how do

you monitor those programs, and what results can you report?

Wildlife and especially birding is one of the major attractions of FEV.

Examples of FEV efforts to protect wildlife and enhance habitat are:

• FEV was the first sanctioned bird banding station in Nicaragua.

• FEV annually hosts a bird banding study carried out by scientists

from Nicaragua and the North Carolina Museum of Natural

Sciences. Two focuses of the ongoing research are the health of

migratory birds from eastern North America and how shade grown

coffee supports bird reproduction and fledgling survival.

• FEV will soon have a Bird Guide to Finca Esperanza Verde as a

result of the past 10 years of research. (FEV has 150 species of birds,

two of which were officially registered as first sightings in

Nicaragua.)

• FEV is the sole support for San Ramon’s  “Little Bluebird Club”

established in 2009. The Club gives young children the opportunity

to use binoculars, learn about local and migratory birds and

appreciate the connection between habitat health and local flora and

fauna. The director of the bird banding operation and FEV nature

guides work with the Club to enhance their appreciation for birding.

These children aspire to be nature guides and encourage their

friends to love birds and protect them.

• The reforestation of FEV’s watershed by removing sources of

contamination (mainly unsanitary homesteads, free ranging cattle

and coffee washing operations) from FEV’s watershed has created a

sanctuary for birds where numerous significant species such as

toucans, humming birds, trogons, motmots, and migratory tanagers

and warblers can be consistently sighted.

• FEV, SCSRN and our partner organization established the “Guide

Club of San Ramon” in 2000. This group of 20 teenagers and young

adults are experts in the history of the area and its flora and fauna.

Club members are hired to guide FEVvisitors on cultural and

birding walks around the town of San Ramón. Two of the Club

members have become full time guides at FEV.

Please give any examples of specific wildlife conservation programs and what they

have achieved. Examples might include a reintroduction program that has brought

a species back to a former habitat, or involvement in an initiative to have land

protected by a government or NGO.   FEV non-bird wildlife program include:

• FEV built the first butterfly conservation station in Nicaragua in

1999. It is a 75’ X 75’ netted butterfly conservatory where 15 native

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butterfly species and their host plants thrive. Nearby is a laboratory

where eggs from the conservatory are moved and raised protected

from pests and other predators. Upon hatching into butterflies 80%

are placed in the conservatory for visitors to enjoy and 20% are

released to keep an optimum number of native species, some of

which are endangered, in the wild.

• FEV has dedicated a 1000 square foot building at the Butterfly

Conservatory to the environmental education of children and their

parents who live near FEV. Numerous times each year, school

children join FEV ecotour groups in educational programs that

teach the importance of the heath of the environment to flora and

fauna, to themselves and to their families. Often these programs are

designed and taught by FEV visitors with FEV organizing the school

groups and providing transportation and a lunch for everyone.

Pictures of these activities are on the FEV web site.

• Large mammal sightings at FEV have increased significantly over

the years. FEV has planted numerous trees and banana species that

attract sloth, howler monkeys and wild cats. FEV visitors regularly

wake to the cries of howler monkeys and enjoy treks to observe these

fascinating large monkeys.

Page 11 of 19

Section D: Health Initiatives

Do you have any programs to improve health in the populations living near your

property? If so, how do you monitor those programs, and what results can you

report?

FEV and its non-profit owner, SCSRN, support many programs to

improve health throughout the county of San Ramón, often with profits from

FEV. Since starting ecotours in 2000, FEV has donated 10% of GROSS

ecotour income to local projects. FEV ecotour participants learn about

SCSRN health, education and environmental projects during their stay and

often become donors and supporters of SCSRN. Examples of the work FEV

and SCSRN do are:

• Rebuilding the town of San Ramón’s water system with a grant from

Rotary International, the Southwest Durham Rotary Club, the local

water company with a donation from FEV of over $30,000,

• Construction of school kitchens where parents prepare a hot meal for

student each school day (17 built so far at a cost of $2,000 each),

• Donating $1,500 each year to the women’s maternity center to

supplement pregnant mothers’ meals with protein rich food and

vegetables. The goal of Casa Materna is to reduce maternal and infant

mortality rates and birth complications in San Ramón.  In 2007 the

Casa Materna served 143 women.  In 2008 they served 235 women.

The majority of women that visit the Casa Materna for care are

typically between the ages of 15 – 19 years old and live 2-4 hours from

the clinic.   There have not been any maternal deaths recorded in San

Ramón since 2007, which coincides with the beginning of the Casa

Materna services.

• Donating $500 donation each year to the San Ramón health center for

fumigations to reduce malaria and dengue fever,

• Donating $2,400 each year to provide meals to the program for the

elderly that serves 40+ seniors.

• Donating $4,000 each year to Los Pipitos handicapped children’s center

to pay for the center’s child development psychologist and physical

therapist. In 2009 the center attended approximately 57 children each

week and in 2010 70 children per week.

• Donating $1,500 annual to support the Volunteer Firefighters in San

Ramón. In addition to fire and rescue the “Bomberos” provide

ambulance services for emergencies in rural areas.  All volunteer

firefighters are trained in first aid and rescue techniques.  In 2008 the

group responded to 130 emergencies, which include forest/house fires,

human or animal rescues, accidents and ambulance/first aid services in

the county of San Ramón.  In 2009, with our support, they were able to

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respond to 393 emergencies and in 2010 they responded to 620

emergencies in the rural areas of the county.

• FEV coffee farm workers and tourism staff attend a mandatory first

aid training each year.  The San Ramón Volunteer Firefighters

organize, teach and host this training for our staff as well as for other

farms in the region.

• FEV ecotour participants visit these different projects and those

visitors with relevant professional skills contribute their skills to these

programs with the help of FEV transportation, donated materials and

translation services.

Page 13 of 19

Section E: Poverty Relief

How many people do you currently employ, and what percentage is native to local

communities?

FEV has 27 year round employees, all of whom live in the local

community and have lived here for at least 15 years. During the highest visit

times of the year, January – May, FEV has one or more North American

bilingual interns to assist FEV guests. FEV provides interns’ airfare, lodging

and meals.

What sorts of training programs do you have for employees?

FEV employees love training programs:

• First Aid Course taught by the local fire department,

• Cooking classes to teach new techniques with a goal of eliminating the

use of packaged and canned ingredients,

• Training in how to be an effective guide and how to interact with

guests,

• Birding technique and identification taught by natural scientists

visiting from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and

Nicaraguan birding guides.

• FEV’s coffee staff receives numerous workshops in organic coffee

cultivation.

What kind of benefits do you offer all your employees, including those hired

locally? Benefits include steady monthly salaries year round.

FEV employee benefits:

• Typically tourism venues lay off staff during the rainy season. FEV

does not lay off its staff when tourism visits are low.

• A mandated extra months’ pay each December,

• Retirement payment equal to 5 months of salary paid when an

employee terminates employment,

• Social security contribution

• Health insurance and other benefits such as transportation to

medical appointments and special interventions such as cataract

surgery.

What is the highest position at your property held by someone native to a local

community?  All FEV staff including the Manager are from the local

community and have lived there more than 15 years. One of FEV’s current

cooks moved back to the area in 2009 from Managua, the capital, because

there was a rewarding and steady job available at FEV.

Page 14 of 19

Do you have any programs to improve living conditions near your property? If so,

how do you monitor those programs, and what results can you report?

FEV improves the quality of life for our neighbors by:

• Providing jobs with fair salaries and benefits. In rural Nicaragua

traditionally the only paying jobs are during the coffee harvest. Our

unique staff rotation allows our tourism employees to have 3.5 days

of work and 3.5 days off to be with their families and children. Staff

turnover at FEV is rare.

• Providing business opportunities for local people to sell food, services

and classes. FEV engages numerous local musicians and other

groups at generous compensation to give cultural performances. In a

typical 7-day ecotour organized by FEV, there are at least four

cultural performances.

• FEV in cooperation with our coffee purchaser, Counter Culture

Coffee, has been a leader in the regional organic coffee association.

FEV has hosted coffee training and conferences where small farmers

for the first time in their long history of growing coffee gain

knowledge about coffee markets and how to improve the quality and

price of their coffee. Traditionally, small farmers were kept ignorant

of the market and the value of the special quality coffee they are

capable of producing.

• More improvements are listed in the answer to next question.

Please give any examples of specific poverty relief programs that exist at your

property, and what they have achieved. Examples might include contracts with

local farmers to supply produce to your hotels and guarantee them a fair wage, or

helping build infrastructure in nearby communities.

In 2005 FEV was recognized by the UN’s World Tourism Organization

(WTO) as a model of Sustainable Tourism to End Poverty (STEP). FEV

hosted a 120 member WTO delegation of tourism officials from across the

Caribbean and Central America. The local entrepreneurs who started small

businesses to provide services to FEV’s ecotour groups gave a moving

presentation at the event. See descriptions of these businesses in response to

the next question.

With funds from FEV:

• Electricity was installed in a nearby rural community, Las

Delicias at a cost of $12,500. For their contribution, the

community provided labor to install a water line as part of FEV’s

project to rebuild the San Ramón water system.

• Other parts of the renovation of San Ramón’s water system

included new water meters for all users and replacing old, leaking

Page 15 of 19

and undersized pipes, repairing valves and leaks reducing water

loss from 60% to 15%.

• FEV donated $10,000 for the neighboring rural community, La

Chispa, to build the area’s only primary school. Parents provided

the manual labor for the construction and FEV provided

construction materials and a contractor to direct the work. The

school is located on a dedicated parcel of land inside the area of

FEV.

• FEV donated $7,000 to the rural community of La Pita to build a

water project for 24 families that had previously relied on

contaminated water. According to the local health providers the

project dramatically reduced cases of water borne diseases.

• Since 2002 FEV has invested over $25,000 in rebuilding and

maintaining the 3 kM road from the small town of Yúcul to FEV.

Along this road are over 100 families and a 25 family coffee

cooperative that benefit from the use of the improved road.

Do you purchase local and fair-trade services and goods, where available? If so,

what are they?

Fair trade services FEV purchases:

• Overnight stays and meals at Guest House Families of San Ramón.

FEV has recruited, trained and monitors the Guest Houses. FEV

interns visit Guest Houses to assist FEV visitors with orientation and

communications.

• Guides from the Tourist Guide Club of San Ramón (young adults

who use the income for their studies and to support their families),

• Dona Adalila’s Cooking Class,

• Jewelry making workshop,

• Handmade paper demonstration,

• Corn grinding demonstration,

• Music and dance performances, and

• Talks by local people on the history of San Ramón.

Fair trade goods:

• One of our guests’ favorite activities is the local craft fair FEV

organizes. Over the years the number craftspeople and the quality of

their goods has significantly increased. One group, people making

beautiful jewelry from seeds, has grown from 1 person in 2000 (when

FEV opened) to more than 7 in 2011. FEV advises craftspeople on

product selection and fair pricing. Most of our visitors pay the

craftperson’s asking price.

• Recently, a four person, women’s handmade paper cooperative from

La Pita told a group from FEV to whom they were giving a

demonstration, “We are now financially independent. We can make

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our own decisions and support our children.” FEV and SCSRN

purchase and resell half of the coop’s output.

• Young artists who received art classes supported by SCSRN as

children now produce more than one  hundred good quality

paintings annually. Most are purchased by FEV guests.

• FEV has a “craft shop” at the lodge where local crafts and food such

as FEV coffee, chocolate and honey made in San Ramón are for sale.

Do you help local small entrepreneurs to develop and sell sustainable products

that are based on the area’s nature, history, and culture (including food and drink,

crafts, performance arts, agricultural products, etc.)?

See response above. A major focus of FEV is to support small businesses

of all kinds by advising them on goods visitors would find attractive,

organizing craft fairs where craftspeople sell directly to visitors and by

purchasing goods for sale at FEV’s craft shop. In addition to craft items, FEV

purchases milk, honey and chickens from our neighbors for consumption by

FEV guests and staff.

FEV used to offer seeds to our neighbors to grow vegetables to sell to

FEV, but this did not produce the necessary quantity or quality. FEV now has

its own garden that serves as an example to our staff of the benefits of growing

pesticide –free organic vegetables.

Do you have a code of conduct for activities in indigenous and local communities,

developed with the consent of and in collaboration with the communities you

operate in?

FEV advises its ecotour groups on culturally appropriate attire and

behavior.

FEV actively seeks to improve traveler ethics by discouraging the idea

that travelers should seek to get the lowest prices and take advantage of

Nicaraguans natural generosity to visitors. FEV encourages its visitors to

leave tips that are then shared equally by all the tourism staff.

Have you implemented a policy against commercial exploitation, particularly of

children and adolescents, including sexual exploitation?

FEV is very concerned about the possible, pernicious effect tourism

done improperly can have on a community and culture:

• Children are prohibited from working in Nicaragua. Nonetheless,

FEV is the only coffee farm in the area that adheres to this law.

• FEV supports women by taking a firm stance on actions that

demean women.. On several occasions, FEV has fired staff or coffee

pickers who violated these rules.

• FEV’s staff lodging separates male and female employees. FEV’s

work week is divided into 2 -  3 ½ days shifts during which time

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employees live and eat on site. The male quarters are a 10 minute

walk from the women’s dorm.

• FEV does not sell hard liquor and for this reason does not attract

visitors who come for socializing around alcohol.

• FEV advises its guests not to give money to children. This

discourages begging and the culture of dependence it creates.

• FEV encourages guests to make a contribution to support local

groups and community activities instead of individuals. Supporting

individuals despite the enormous need creates jealousy and

resentment that can divide communities and the FEV staff.

Information is available in the lodge on local non-profits and how

SCSRN can give assistance in making tax-deductible donations.

Page 18 of 19

Section F: Education Programs (both youth and adult)

Do you have any programs to improve the level of education in the populations

living near your property? If so, how do you monitor those programs, and what

results can you report

FEV supports many programs in all levels of education in San Ramón

including:

• FEV donated $10,000 in 2003 for construction materials and paid for

a contractor for the neighboring rural community, La Chispa, to

build the areas only primary school. The local parents provided the

manual labor for the construction. The school is located on a

dedicated land parcel inside FEV.

• Rural School Partnerships (RSP) for 12 of the rural schools in San

Ramón through which a school in the US and one of San Ramón’s 72

rural primary schools join to promote better education and cultural

understanding. When a high school group visits FEV on a “cultural

immersion ecotour” it typically decides to form a partnership with a

local school for the purpose of supporting the school with a minimum

$500 annual donation that the parents and teacher designate for

improvements to the school.

• Periodic educational programs at the FEV Environmental Education

Center for local children and families.

• Numerous FEV employees are illiterate. FEV has sponsored basic

education classes and several formerly illiterate employees completed

the classes and can now read and write.

• FEV has provided materials and sponsored English courses for FEV

staff taught by FEV interns.

Please give any examples of specific education programs and what they have

achieved. Examples might include building schools that allow 500 more students

to attend classes, or offering adult literacy classes from which 100 people have

graduated so far.

FEV supports numerous educational programs:

• FEV donated $10,000 in 2003 for construction materials and paid for

a contractor for the neighboring rural community, La Chispa, to

build the areas only primary school. The local parents provided the

manual labor for the construction. The school is located on a

dedicated land parcel inside FEV.

• FEV’s non-profit owner, SCSRN, has since provided funds for 5

more communities to build a primary school. The school

construction process has given the communities a focus and pride. At

three of the schools parents have also organized adult literacy classes

to learn to read and write.

Page 19 of 19

• FEV’s non-profit owner, SCSRN, has provided funds and a building

contractor for 17 rural schools to build a school kitchen. Once a

school has a clean space to prepare food, it qualifies to receive

donations of food from the World Food Program of the UN. Parents

cook a hot meal every school day for the school children in the school

kitchens this brings the added benefit of attracting students to school

and involving the parents in the life of the school.

• Many of the donations made to FEV’s non-profit owner, SCSRN,

come from people who have visited FEV on an ecotour and returned

home inspired to support projects in San Ramón. The constant flow

of visitors to FEV replenishes the list of donors. Our motto,

“Supporting a rural Nicaraguan community one visit at a time,” is

very apt and born out year after year.

END OF APPLICATION

The winners will receive their award at the USTOA conference in Hollywood, Florida, on December 6, 2004, and will be highlighted in Smithsonian Magazine.

The Durham organization,Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua, joined by Nicarguan partners have been developing a tourism operation in the rural mountainous county of San Ramón, Nicaragua since 1998. Durham volunteers created the sister community relationship in 1993 in an effort to relieve persistent unemployment and poverty in one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere.

The project includes:

• Marketing of shade-grown organic coffee grown by small farmers and cooperatives;
• conservation of the mountain region through reforestation and restoration of wildlife habitat; and
• a multi-facility eco-lodge, which brings money into the local economy, and prompts the creation of related local businesses, and
• many related efforts, including a water system, school programs and more.

Finca Esperanza Verde was named Best Eco-Lodge in 2004 by the Nicaraguan Institute of Tourism.

The Nicaraguan Minister of Tourism, Lucía Salazar, who launched a nation-wide campaign to encourage Nicaraguans to vote in the Smithsonian Magazine on line competition said,

“It is the first time Nicaragua is the winner in a world wide competition. The Sustainable Tourism Award for Conservation bestowed on Finca Esperanza Verde Ecolodge and Nature Preserve gives a positive image to our country currently promoting itself as a tourist destination, especially with European and North American tourists who usually seek destinations friendly to the environment. This is an excellent opportunity to let people know about our country. The award will help to change the negative image that we have, it will attract more tourism which will permit the creation of more employment and it is of immense pride for Nicaragua.”

Finca Esperanza Verde Eco-lodge, built of handmade brick with solar electric panels on all the roof tops and two solar refrigerators in the kitchen, has a 100 mile view across the Dariense mountain range. It is a cool, green and tranquil paradise at 1,200 meters/4,000 feet elevation. From the 18 bed lodge visitors may bird watch while seated in a rocking chair or stroll through nearby hiking trails to view 150 species of birds and other wildlife. The lodge includes two cabins with bath and shower which each sleep six people in comfortable bunk beds and three private rooms with shared bath and shower. There is an 8 bed dormitory located next to the butterfly farming operation nearby.

Eco-tours to San Ramón are organized by former tourists who want to introduce others to rural Nicaraguan where a casual horse back ride can turn into an opportunity to visit the horse owner’s farm to meet his family. And where a hike through the shade grown coffee farm can turn into a lesson in how to cure rashes and stomach ache with herbal medicines growing along the path as well as a dip in a secluded pool below a waterfall.

None of the revenues from the eco-tours is taken out of San Ramón. It goes to local community development projects, to support the farm and to pay for a broad array of services including home stays with local families. In addition, ten percent of the income from eco-tours is donated to a community to build a school or water project.

Recent eco-tour groups from the Triangle area include scientists from the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, members of the NC Audubon Society, returned Peace Corps volunteers, Southwest Durham Rotary Club, Durham Academy, Raleigh Charter High School, and East Chapel Hill High School. Educators consider a week’s visit to the farm and town of San Ramón a unique opportunity for their students to live with a Nicaraguan family, to speak Spanish and to teach their Nicaraguan peers some English.

The eco-lodge is the centerpiece of an expanding network of projects in San Ramón funded by Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua and the organizations and individuals that support it. Finca Esperanza Verde has strong ties with the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, which has imported butterfly pupa raised on the farm and leaf cutter ants for the museum’s well-known Butterfly House. The Southwest Durham Rotary Club has donated over $100,000 to community development projects in San Ramón over the past 10 years, including $50,000 to build a new water system for the urbanized area.

In addition, projects including a free music school, sports programs for children, a high school teacher’s salary, a librarian’s salary, an activity program for senior citizens, art classes for youth, adult literacy program, a physical therapist for the handicapped children’s center, and a sports program and medical equipment for the health center have been funded by Durham congregations including Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Watts Street Baptist Church, Duke Chapel Congregation, and Durham Friends Meeting, as well as other organizations and individual donors.

The project has prompted villagers to become entrepreneurs, launching micro-enterprises such as cooking classes on local dishes wrapped in banana leaves, workshops where tourists turn a pile of tropical seeds into attractive necklaces, a network of guest house families, and Nicaraguan folk music groups. The income is quickly converted into new shoes for school, musical instruments, and improved health care.

Two of the founders of the sister community partnership, Richard and Lonna Harkrader, lead eco-tours to San Ramón every year when they have the opportunity to bring the challenges of life in a poor area of the world into sharp focus for the eco-tour participants. Richard, an architect and renewal energy promoter, designed the all buildings at Finca Esperanza Verde including the butterfly house. Both were Peace Corps volunteers in Africa in the late 60′s and own and rent passive solar apartments with solar water heaters in Durham.

The ongoing hope for eco-tourism in San Ramón is to protect the mountains from deforestation through increased appreciation for the economic benefits eco-tourism brings. The words of Ernesto Gonzalez, naturalist guide at Finca Esperanza Verde, are a perfect expression of this attitude shift, “When I first started working at Finca Esperanza Verde, I was like other farmers around here in my lack of appreciation for the natural world. I would whack into trees with my machete as I walked along to pass the time just like all the rest. Now I have changed. The tourists and natural scientists who have come to San Ramón have shown so much respect and fascination for the natural world I used to take for granted, that now I, too, value the wildlife and plants around me. It is like a new world before my eyes. And the income I make as a naturalist guide, which I have been trained to be thanks to this project, helps my family have a better life.”

The Smithsonian Magazine/Travelers Conservation Foundation contest is detailed in a press release at http://www.sustainabletourismawards.com.

Other contacts:
Lucía Salazar, Nicaraguan Minister of Tourism. <.ni>

High resolution digital photographs are available.