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From Agriculture to Ecotourism: Socio-Economic Change, Community Development and Environmental Sustainability in a Costa Rican Village

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From Agriculture to Ecotourism: Socio-Economic Change, Community Development and Environmental Sustainability in a Costa Rican Village By Josephine Howitt Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Master of Arts in Globalization and International Development School of International Development and Global Studies Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ottawa © Josephine Howitt, Ottawa, Canada, 2012 Abstract: This research is an ethnographic case study of the emerging ecotourism economies in the agricultural village of San Gerardo de Rivas, Pérez Zeledón, Costa Rica. Due to the village’s location as the main entry point to climb the country’s tallest mountain within Chirripó National Park, the majority of households in San Gerardo now derive some income from tourism. I conducted twenty household surveys, followed by twenty-one semi-structured interviews with male and female heads of households and representatives of local organizations and tourism businesses. Drawing on local perspectives, I found that ecotourism was a complementary income source to agriculture and that men and women were engaging differently in ecotourism employment. Local organizations were involved in the participatory management of ecotourism activities within Chirripó National Park. Ecotourism has affected environmental practices and local people are strategically negotiating the direction of tourism development, including through using environmental discourses, to optimize the benefits to their community. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the individuals from San Gerardo de Rivas who participated in my research and shared their time and experiences with me. I am so grateful to the community members who welcomed me to their village and invited me to community events, to visit their farms or to enjoy a coffee and pan casero (homemade bread) while waiting for the rain to ease. A special thank you to the Arce-Prado family for hosting me and introducing me to tico life and also to the Proyecto San Gerardo committee members for your friendship and inspirational work. My supervisor, Deborah Sick, largely facilitated this research and I thank her immensely for the opportunity to extend my academic interests and challenge my preconceptions through doing fieldwork. It was a privilege to work as a research assistant in Costa Rica, which provided much-needed practice for my own interviews and greatly increased my coffee-farming vocabulary in Spanish. Alexandra Arellano and Marie-Josée Massicotte also offered valuable critical contributions to this work - merci beaucoup. I greatly appreciate having had such in-depth feedback from all committee members. Thank you also to my friends and family both in Aotearoa/New Zealand and here in Canada for your encouragement and interest; in particular to my parents, who instilled a love of learning from a young age and to my partner Court who has shared with me the ups and downs of these past two years and provided support, humour, proof-reading and love, depending on what was needed. Lastly, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my dear grandfather who passed away while it was being written. A farmer and man of the land, he taught me to appreciate the natural world in a way that only those deeply connected to it can. It is this same passion for nature and the rural way of life that is embodied by many community members in San Gerardo, as reflected in this thesis. iii Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................... 1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK............................................................................................................................2 RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODOLOGY...........................................................................................................3 OUTLINE OF THESIS ....................................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF ECOTOURISM AND DEVELOPMENT LITERATURE.............11 ECOTOURISM: GLOBAL FORMULATIONS..................................................................................................... 11 LOCAL IMPLICATIONS: CASE STUDIES OF ECOTOURISM........................................................................... 13 Ecotourism and agricultural production ................................................................................................13 Gender, socio-economic status and ecotourism employment.........................................................15 Ecotourism and environmental sustainability......................................................................................17 Negotiating the direction of tourism development.............................................................................20 CHAPTER THREE: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN COSTA RICA.................................22 MAJOR SOCIO-ECONOMIC INDICATORS ....................................................................................................... 22 FROM COFFEE TO TOURISM: COSTA RICA’S EVOLVING RURAL ECONOMY ............................................ 24 REGIONAL CONTEXT: PÉREZ ZELEDÓN, COSTA RICA............................................................................... 30 ECOTOURISM IN SAN GERARDO DE RIVAS, PÉREZ ZELEDÓN ................................................................. 32 CHAPTER FOUR: HOUSEHOLD INCOME STRATEGIES IN SAN GERARDO DE RIVAS .......39 THE CHANGING ROLE OF AGRICULTURE...................................................................................................... 40 TOURISM EMPLOYMENT, GENDER AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS........................................................ 48 Tourism jobs by gender ...................................................................................................................................49 Perceptions of women’s work and economic decision-making......................................................54 Business ownership and social mobility...................................................................................................59 Perceptions of agricultural versus tourism work ................................................................................61 COMMUNITY BENEFITS AND INCREASING RELIANCE ON TOURISM INCOME......................................... 64 TOWARDS A DIVERSIFIED RURAL TOURISM ECONOMY?........................................................................... 66 CONCLUSION 72 CHAPTER FIVE: COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN MANAGING ECOTOURISM DEVELOPMENT.....................................................................................................................................74 IMPROVING TOURISM EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES: LOCAL AND STATE INVOLVEMENT............... 74 Vocational training ...........................................................................................................................................76 Meeting the aspirations of youth ................................................................................................................77 Expanding employment opportunities for women..............................................................................79 Promotion of attractions within the village...........................................................................................82 MANAGEMENT OF ECOTOURISM ACTIVITIES IN CHIRRIPÓ NATIONAL PARK ...................................... 83 LOCAL OPINIONS OF THE STATE’S ROLE IN TOURISM DEVELOPMENT ................................................... 90 NEGOTIATING MORE FAVOURABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES ..................................... 93 CONCLUSION 97 CHAPTER SIX: ECOTOURISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY...........................99 SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL CHANGE IN SAN GERARDO ......................................................................................100 Environmental practices facilitated by ecotourism.........................................................................102 Negative environmental impacts of tourism.......................................................................................110 CONCLUSION 112 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................... 114 REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................... 120 ENDNOTES .......................................................................................................................................... 128 iv List of Figures and Tables Chapter One. Table 1-1. Summary of phases of data collection……………………………….…......5 Chapter Three. Figure 3-1. (photograph - San Gerardo de Rivas village site) .................................. 37 Chapter Four. Figure 4-1. (photograph - tourism business signs) ................................................... 40 Figure 4-2. (photograph - tomato production)........................................................... 44 Table 4-1. Characterization of survey sample households by landholding size, age and wage labour participation................................................................................... 49 Table 4-2. Distribution of positions by gender of members, Association of Porters, Guides and Cooks, San Gerardo de Rivas, Costa Rica.................................... 49 Figure 4-3.
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