Centro PUMA eco-tourism initiative nicaragua
Centro Puma’s eco-tourism initiative
Centro PUMA is a café and community center that supports education and conservation for the local community and serves the needs of visitors and tourists. It is a cooperative of US Park Rangers and Nicaraguan tour guides who lead hiking tours around Ometepe Island.
PUMA stands for Protectores Unidos por el Medio Ambiente, or United Protectors of the Environment. Tour guides and teachers staff the Ingles café and visitor center and teach classes here.
Like many other communities, Ometepe, Nicaragua, was not spared from the devastating effects of political unrest and the pandemic. The tourism industry, a major source of income for the locals, was hit hard, leaving many struggling to make ends meet.
Centro PUMA is located on the freshwater island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua, Nicaragua. While revising its social and environmental sustainability goals through community projects, the business side of the organization is still struggling after a political crisis, and the pandemic shut down tourism for many years.
Their Eco-tourism Initiative will integrate information and decision-making processes for tourists and the community by offering tour guide training and development, leading to a more sustainable tourist industry.
"Currently, tourists are typically approached by guides on the street or their hotels," said Arlin Hernandez Barrios, co-founder of Centro PUMA. "The tourists have no way to evaluate or investigate the abilities and motivations of their guide."
Their mission is to improve Ometepe tour guide services while improving the local economy with a fair business. Guiding pays the locals a fair wage and provides various employment opportunities nationwide. The Eco-tourism Initiative would incentivize current and next-generation guides to pursue professional development by organizing guide quality standardization and a sustainable career option. Currently, there isn't an organized force, and Nicaraguan’s interested in guiding are often self-funded and under-educated.
The Centro PUMA cooperative is based on the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. Along with standardizing guide training and development, they would improve access to guides and tours by establishing a professional website offering better information to travelers and the ability to book a tour and pay online. This will allow tourists to provide feedback and comments to improve guide services via surveys and review sites.
The Eco-Tourism Initiative has been provided a Crooked Trails grant for $4,000. Within the next year, Centro PUMA will train 25 junior rangers and graduate 15 with follow-up training to become guides. They will also provide up to 5 interns with on-the-job training opportunities, peer reviews, and visitation exchanges with three different off-island locations.
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