Finca Esperaza Verde

Eco-lodge and Organic Coffee Farm Owned by Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua

In 1993 a dynamic sister community partnership between San Ramón, Matagalpa, Nicaragua and communities in North Carolina, USA began with the goal of building ties of peace and friendship in the aftermath of the US funded counter-revolutionary war of the 1980s.

During our first 5 years, we observed that the economy of San Ramón remained depressed and stagnant. The intrinsic beauty of San Ramón’s people and countryside lead us to begin creating opportunities for tourism as a means of creating economic development. There were many obstacles to overcome. San Ramón is located far from Nicaragua’s beaches and historic sights, and no one in San Ramón believed that people would want to visit such an out of the way and poor community.

Finca Esperanza Verde (FEV) began in 1997 when we bought a 40 acre abandoned coffee farm located on a mountain top 11 miles (18 km) from the town of San Ramón. The farm offered a dramatic setting of tropical forests and vistas across a mountain range, fresh water springs and quiet, pastoral surroundings. The public road to the farm was a muddy track and there was no water, electricity or telephone service. There was a bus route one-hour walk away.

The tourism project was conceived by Lonna and Richard Harkrader who previously served separately in the US Peace Corps in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tunisia. The experience of living in exotic cultures fascinated both of them and they wanted others to have the chance to enjoy similar experiences. Yelba Valenzuela, a member of the local partner organization to SCSRN oversaw much of the construction and administered FEV with great care and dedication for the first six years. Finca Esperanza Verde Eco-lodge goals were to:

• Promote economic development by creating jobs and opportunities for micro-enterprise,
• Be a model, environmentally-conscious organic shade grown coffee farm,
• Preserve a large enough track of land in the rainforest to have a positive impact on wildlife including the endangered howler monkey,
• Strengthen the local culture by giving groups opportunities to share their music, history and stories.
• Give foreign visitors opportunities to learn about the realities faced by people in rural Nicaragua and potentially to transform their worldviews.

Tourism at FEV grew dramatically in 2004 when Smithsonian magazine and Travelers Conservation Foundation recognized FEV with the Sustainable Tourism Award for Conservation and the Nicaraguan Ministry of Tourism and FODESTUR gave FEV the Best Eco-lodge in Nicaragua award. International awards continue to be bestowed on FEV including the ToDo! Award (Swiss) in 2004 for Socially Responsible Tourism and the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Award (UK) for Best Small Hotel in 2007. The World Tourism Organization (WTO), a UN agency, recognized FEV in 2005 as a model for Sustainable Tourism to End Poverty (STEP). In addition, the FEV coffee won the top score for organic coffee in the Cup of Excellence in 2007 and 2008.

Due to the new tourism market created by FEV, local groups and individuals have created small businesses that serve the visitors, including:

• Guest Houses of San Ramón (women who provide home stays, meals and friendship to visitors)
• Tourist Guide Club of San Ramón (a group of young people who accompany visitors around San Ramón and tell them about the region’s history, institutions and people)
• Crafts and art production
• Music groups
• Workshops of various kinds including cooking, jewelry, hand made paper and mask making.

Bringing groups to San Ramón for one week gives visitors the opportunity to become immersed in the local culture and to build intimate ties before they return home. We also wanted to concentrate the economic impact in this one geographic area and give the group of visitors the chance to get to know each other and to have fun together. One of our models is the French “gites” which offer group housing, meals and activities to groups and individuals in rural settings. The idea to include stays with local families came from SERVAS, an organization founded in Denmark to build peace following World War II.

FEV has now grown to 265 acres with the purchase of numerous surrounding parcels of land. We now control and have preserved the pristine quality of the watershed including that become creeks and rivers for downstream communities. FEV assiduously follows the environmental protection laws of Nicaragua and is known for the ecological way we process our coffee. FEV is a prime stop on the Ruta del Café. Over the years groups from other Nicaraguan communities, CECOCAFEN, and Nicaraguan university students have come to learn from FEV’s practices about sustainable tourism and community involvement. In addition, the World Tourism Organization (WTO), an agency of the United Nations brought 120 delegates to FEV from Central American and Caribbean countries to learn about sustainable, community-based tourism.

Electricity at FEV is generated by photovoltaic panels on the roofs of the buildings and a micro-hydro generator that uses water from one of our streams. These 2 sources power FEV’s lighting, refrigeration and communications. Fallen trees provide much of the cooking fuel.

FEV’s facilities include a lodge with wood stove and 4 large dining tables, a library with reference materials, a large kitchen, accommodations for 26 guests in two six-person cabins, 3 double rooms with private baths, and an 8 bed dormitory, a camping area, organic vegetable garden, a butterfly conservatory and laboratory, a yoga pavilion, and an environmental education center. The list of activities at FEV is long and includes hiking on an extensive system of 5 trails, birding for over 250 species of birds, two of which were officially sighted for the first time in Nicaragua at FEV, viewing numerous plants, orchids, butterflies, monkeys, sloth and tree frogs.

Funding to build FEV came from years of coffee sales in North Carolina and many group visits both made possible by individuals in NC who donated their time to sell coffee and organize trips. For ten years Counter Culture Coffee has roasted our coffee for free so we could sell it in North Carolina at a sizeable profit. We also received donations from SW Durham Rotary for the butterfly project and a pick up truck. The SEEP Network (USA) recently made grants to build staff housing and for a market study. Donations have also been received for reforestation, More recently Finca Esperanza Verde received a $1500 grant from the Rainforest Alliance to sponsor a local field school in sustainable coffee cultivation.

San Ramón, population 34,000, is able to absorb the impact from visitors with no ill effects because the scale is appropriate for the area and because the economic impact is greatly appreciated by hundreds of people who benefit directly. There are 25 Nicaraguan staff members at FEV who are employed full time at fair salaries with benefits. All the staff members are local and many walk to work. FEV manager Giff Laube from Wisconsin, USA, lives in San Ramón with his Honduran wife.

FEV offers two kinds of ecotours: 1) Two to four night ecotours for 1-26 people that include all meals, lodging, hikes and a wide variety of exotic activities, and 2) 5-7 + night ecotours for groups of 8-26 when the group often visits the local schools or invites schools to FEV for experiential learning activities. Both types of ecotours may include stays with local families in the town of San Ramón.

Donations to environmental and humanitarian causes
One hundred percent of income from tourism and coffee is invested in the local economy. Ten percent of gross income from eco-tourism is designated for rural water projects , construction of rural schools and similar community development projects. To date the projects receiving grants from FEV/SCSRN include: Construction of La Chispa Primary School, La Pita Community water project, the Municipal water project of San Ramón, and sponsorship of the Festival de Danza.

Lonna Harkrader, co-founder
February, 2009