Capacity building and strengthening of community groups in the Ria Celestun Biosphere Reserve

Nowadays the challenge in managing and administrating natural resources include, among other issues, the question of how to incorporate the local communities and the society in general, in management and planning of natural reserves and how to determine and then use the economic value to obtain the support of all different sectors of the population.

One of the reasons why the society does not value the natural resources appropriately, in questions like balanced ecosystems and the quality of life of its own community, is the lack of an education on the ecological, socioeconomic and educative importance of the place where they live and the surrounding means, as well as the lack of knowledge about its benefits and the important role which they take in this ecossystem.Therefor associations should be established in which the rights, the aspirations, knowledge and abilities and the resources of the community are respected and reinforced.

PPY has been working for more than eight years with the communities that live in the Ria Celestun Biosphere Reserve. The efforts have involved various sectors of the community: children, youth, women, and fisherman who through an ecotourism project became local tourist guides which increased their income by taking national and international tourists to encounter the American Flamingo that inhabit the reserve.

Objectives:

Our objective is to provide environmental education and technical qualification and strengthen organisation and leadership among community groups in the Biosphere Reserve Ria Celestun. By this we hope to contribute to diversify the productive activities and to qualify the impact of the human activities on the natural resources in a sustainable manner.

Expectations:

To evaluate the social, economic and resource management impacts of the activities, in order to multiply the efforts, to improve and to optimize the educacion and training, and to harness the participation of the community, at the same time improving the quality of life in the community.

Results:

The third workshop of "Training for Naturalist Guides in the Ria Celestun Biosphere Reserve" was designed and implemented, in which 10 local residents took part. With this workshop PPY has achieved, that 40 percent of the total "boatmen" who work mainly in tourism are well trained for their task.

The second workshop on "Typical Embroidery: higher quality in commercial articles with motives of the fauna of the Ria Celestun Biosphere Reserve" was carried out with 10 women of the community. Capacities and abilities in producion, organization and high quality of the embroidering were developed. At the moment, five of the craftswomen work full-time time in this activity and sell their products to the tourists at the tourist centre of the reserve.