Bocas del Toro Real Estate and Tourism: A good thing?


Bocas del Toro Real Estate and Tourism: A good thing?

(1 vote)

Written by Matt Landau

Monday, September 25 2006

The following is from a friend of mine, Don who's a marine biologist and world traveler. After some time in Micronesia, Don moved to Bocas del Toro. While real estate and tourism in Bocas have been booming, their side effects have been easy to overlook. People like Don are doing some really impressive things and setting the kind of standards that Panama tourism needs. Now, it's just a question of who will follow?

Soluciones Biotecnologicas Tropicales (SBT) was started by Educator and Marine Scientist, Don King in Bocas del Toro, Republic of Panama. It's primary mission as the name implies, is to provide biotechnical solutions for issues here in the Province of Bocas del Toro. Bocas del Toro is a Province located on the Caribbean side of Panama and adjacent to the Costa Rican border. The islands and their peoples are a mix of indigenous Ngobe Indians, Afroantillians, Latino, and foreign nationalities. The local populations primary sources of income are the banana farms, lumber, and marine resources, with tourism as a minor part.

This region suffers with many of the same problems as do all other Caribbean nations; with the resulting cultural and ecological degradation that follows. These problems are exacerbated by a “real estate” boom in the island area of the province. Tourists and experts unknowingly are driving this degradation machine in some part. The local people to fulfill the needs of these new arrivals are over harvesting the reefs and over cutting their forests. Many of the new arrivals would offer assistance to the local peoples if they only knew how or had a medium to do so. One of the missions of SBT is to provide this information to the people and to encourage them to be active in forming a positive partnership with the communities here.

SBT is a privately owned company with no outside funding at this time. It solely relies on volunteers for the expertise and manpower it needs. We have had projects running in Bocas for over three years now and have learned in partnership with the local people a great deal.

Salt Creek Project

This purpose of this project was to establish an experimental station where different techniques of low cost farming and forestry could be evaluated as an alternative source of food and income for the Ngobe Indians of Salt Creek. The site is a former pasture adjacent to a beach, which was cleared of invasive plant species and re-planted with both native and foreign vegetables and fruits. Many of the Ngobe have similar beach adjacent properties, which they do not cultivate. This is primarily due to tradition and a lack of practical experience. The station used techniques were no fertilizer or pesticide was employed. Optimum conditions for the vegetables were established by experimental plantings. Salt, sun, and wind tolerance, pests, watering, and ground elevation were the major inhibiting growth and survival factors.

We know have successful plantings of passion fruit, corn, watermelons, squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, celery, sage, lemon grass, black pepper, hot peppers, sweet peppers, chocolate, sugar cane, and coffee. Plus indigenous plants such a as wondoo, yucca, papaya, and disen. We discovered natural insect repellents growing in our garden. We have virtually eliminated the cost and environmental damage of typical farming with pesticides and fertilizers.

We additionally planted among these crops over two hundred native trees. The planted species were those most commonly harvested by the locals for lumber. The plantings have been doing very well.

An unexpected pest issue we encountered was that our young fruit bearing plants were being attacked by land crabs. We discovered a simple solution by accident to this problem and now have large fruit bearing papaya trees on the site. All of the gardeners are Ngobe Indians we trained. They have learned skills about how we have accomplished this and share with other Ngobe. Ngobe and other persons come to the site and are freely given information and technical assistance on how to do what we have done.

Salt Creek Tilapia Project

Over fishing of the reefs is evident in most of Bocas. The local people derive much of their food and income source from the sea. A viable alternative must be offered to re-direct these people's needs. We believed if the effort to obtain the alternative food was less than fishing and the cost minimal, that the people who be willing to try this approach. SBT researched this issue and discovered on a United Nations site that fish aquaculture is the least labor intensive and most income producing alternative to this problem.

We have constructed two large lakes at our Salt Creek project to begin a tilapia fish farm. This would be funded by us and possibly U.S. AID (who will provide fish for indigenous people projects). The Ngobe would be trained as both workers and in classes on how and why to fish farm. They would be able to share in its bounty and SBT would assist those interested in developing their own ponds or even communal ponds and a co-op for organizing and selling outside the village.

We believe the low physical maintenance, cost of food for the fish (primary food is algae and termites, both of which are easy to obtain in the tropics), free fish fry (U.S. AID), protein food source producing for home consumption, and a ready market in Bocas restaurants (we have already sold some to Bocas restaurants from another project and they requested more), make this a very viable project to offset over fishing.

Salt Creek Ngobe School

Most of the Indian populations are located in remote areas of the province and the schools they are supplied with from the government generally only go up to the 6th grade. The student would then be required to attend any further education by going to the mainland or to Isla Colon to attend school. This is not feasible for most students due to the cost of transportation or the lack of a family to stay with in the school area. We surveyed the village of Salt Creek and had 85 children and adults confirm they would attend educational classes if they were provided.

Knowing that the future of these people in this rapidly developing area depends on an understanding of the western world, we decided to provide our own school (starting with the 7th grade). Our goals were to also preserve the culture where possible, educate the people about Panamanian politics and its affects on them, and teach conservation. We are very well known by Bocas ANAM and have been in fact authorized to recruit persons and funding for ecological projects affecting the Isla Bastimentos National marine Park.

To achieve the first goal of cultural preservation SBT searched for an Ngobe teacher who would teach in their native tongue. After 6 months, we located a young teacher and arranged for him to teach on our farm (which is adjacent to the village and the trail we provided the village for beach access on our side of the island) in one of our buildings, until a building could be built in the village. Land in the village has already been donated for the school, we now need some minimal funding and to arrange for the village manpower to assist in its construction. SBT pays for the teacher's continuing education at the university in Changuinola and a salary. We also provide all the school supplies and the teachers transport to and from Salt Creek each week.

Our teacher teaches the basic 7th grade curriculum, plus biological conservation and cultural preservation. One of the student's writing assignments is to speak with the village elders and record the old folklore. We are working with the University of Texas Archeology department to prepare a booklet of Ngobe folklore, partially from their works. The students will also gain practical experience in agriculture and science by seeing it in action on our farm station.

The school began with seven students and currently ahs fourteen. The parents of the students are very pleased and we have been approached by several other islands about opening a school there as well. SBT plans to continue to add teachers and for the higher classes and a Vo-Tech portion as possible. There are many retired expats in Bocas with skills that could be utilized in a Vo-Tech setting. We are currently discussing adding another grade to the most remote island in Bocas "Cayo de Aqua". We are only limited by our funding and time. All of our SBT staff except for the teacher are volunteers.

Other projects include an effort to man the turtle beaches by volunteers from U.S. universities (we already have scheduled recruiting lectures for several universities in Florida planned), a project proposal to manage the Zapatilla Islands in the national park as a conservation training area, and to train the Ngobe of Salt Creek to become their own park ranger corp funded by tourist activates.

To Help: email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 011.507.6563.1898

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