Life from abroad

I’m a US Peace Corps volunteer in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, Philippines attempting something most people would call International Development. My current project is to convince sugarcane growers in the area to stop burning the cane leaf and turn it into green charcoal instead. I say current because after 15-months I have nothing tangible to show for my primary project; helping the city to develop a sanitary landfill and recycling program. What I have gained from my time here is the knowledge of patience and understanding. I have learned to slow way down in order to live on Pilipino Time and to not to expect progress as efficiently as I once did. But other than the joys of working in a developing country I consider this a two year paid holiday I couldn’t be enjoying more.

Why am I here?:

It all started with my previous job as a navigator/surveyor on a ship installing telephone fiber-optic cable in the ocean. During these four years I was fortunate enough to travel continuously; I lived out of my backpack. Many times I would end up in places where one would question his or her reasons for being there. But for every time of difficulty there was equal time of beauty, discovery and adventure. It was these experiences that sharply shaped my impressions of the world and how I could do more to preserve the places I visited. It was shocking to see how easily nature’s fragile beauty can be lost forever by humanity’s insatiable pursuit of blind progress.

This realization was brought home at Camp Leakey, Borneo Indonesia. The first time I went in 1998, I saw three camps of orangutans. When I returned with Rasa, my fiancee, in 2002 there was only one camp left. The other two were closed by local loggers who felt cheated because they received nothing from the tourists who came. At first, I was pissed at the loggers but then thinking about it, I felt they were correct in their claim. If they don’t get money from the tourists than they need to log for survival; there is no other way they know of how to make money. They are just as much part of the forest ecosystem as the orangutans and are not going away. Why not give them a long-term stake in the preservation of the forest and orangutans by a price increase western tourists could easily afford instead of just the short term gain of cutting the trees?

My Theory:

My basic premise is to try using environmental, cultural, economic and social sustainability to promote low volume, high value tourism development. Basically there are less tourists (or travelers), leaving a lower impact and paying more money to do it. These days everyone has a beach where you can pay for the experience of tropical romance; think Hawaii. It is so much harder to find an experience where you are immersed in the customs people have followed for 1000 years or sitting 3m away from a silverback gorilla on the border of Congo.

I have set out to put this idea into practice and it will be my guiding theory as I work my way through the international development field. I know my notions above are vague but I’ll start to expand on them as the blog progresses. Let’s hope it is fruitful!