Recently I spent 4 days in Villagómez, a town about 3 hours north of Bogotá. The team from Universidad El Bosque was tasked with assessing the natural resources and existing infrastructures there in order to assess the tourism potential of the area. The citizens of the town desire a secondary source of income and, with the beautiful mountains and wide variety of species there, ecotourism is a promising option.
The 4 days were highly productive for our team. We did camera trap surveys of 2 different mountainous forests, met with several community leaders, toured key natural sites, and had many brainstorming sessions. Over and over we reminded ourselves to focus on potential opportunities; something did not have to be obviously perfect for tourism for it to be worthy of our time. In fact, we knew most of the town's infrastructure and surrounding natural sites would be potentially ideal. If they were already ideal, then our aid would not have been needed. All in all, it was a very productive few days. In September, our team will present our findings in the form of a detailed proposal to the departmental leaders at a meeting themed around tourism in the department of Cundinamarca. I will be back in the USA by then, but I am excited to hear how it goes.
1 Comment
Robin
7/18/2017 05:50:55 pm
I can't wait to hear more details!
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Ben JohnsonI am a junior at Rice University majoring in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and minoring in Environmental Studies Archives
June 2017
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