Save Eco Destinations

GVI volunteers carrying out the weekly plankton sampling at L’ilot for Marine Conservation Society Seychelles (MCSS). Photo by Jon Bilbrough

Have you heard of Global Vision International? GVI’s been around since 1998 and works to develop sustainable development through research, conservation, and education. It provides services to charities, NGOs, and governmental agencies around the globe through promotion, donations, and volunteering.

GVI is neither a political nor a religious organization. It sends 2,000 volunteers out per year to aid-reliant projects in over 30 countries.

If you’re not looking to go tan on yet another beach and take more of the same pictures, check out the conservation and humanitarian projects at GVI. You can browse through GVI’s volunteer options, destinations, and more to find something that suits you.

I know that even when I am exhausted and think “I need a vacation!!” more than two days doing nothing will jar me. If I can go somewhere beautiful, enjoy a radical change of scenery, meet new people, and do something that will help others, I feel more rewarded than if I had just spent a week getting sunburned on some beach.

Don’t get me wrong-I love the beach. But after a few hours kayaking and swimming and reading, don’t you get bored? It’d be cool to go somewhere on vacation and know that whenever you got bored or tired of it, you could go on to volunteer somewhere in the area.

GVI even offers responsible holidays of one week or more. For example, the Mexican Marine Expedition in the Caribbean Sea, where they teach you diving to contribute toward coral reef research in the area. (Remember that green sunscreen!) Or you can teach English to Buddhist monks in Laos! There are some awesome options in there, stuff I wouldn’t have thought of.

With GVI, you get training and career development opportunities through the trips and volunteering, so you could even view your time with them as an investment, depending on your future goals.

I think within the next several years, I will go volunteer somewhere for several weeks. Build homes for the homeless, teach English to people in secluded areas, help research for nature conservation. It’s scary–what will happen to your job when you get back, right? True. But when there’s a will, there’s a way.

LIVING MACHINES: Clean, Green Waste-Water Recycling

Here’s a topic I haven’t read much about at all: how to gauge your own eco comfort level.

It’s true: you may be okay walking around naked, consuming a vegan diet, and living electricity-free, while I might be cool with that as long as I can also have wi-fi access and an outlet for my laptop. Or maybe you feel strongly about showering with hot water when vacationing in Alaska. Hey-to each her or his own.

Here’s an article I came across in which the author brings one’s own personal comfort level into play. Turns out he needs iPhone access everywhere he goes, which he didn’t realize until the first day of two-week-long trip! Oops.

Say you’re going on a trip.

The most overwhelming part of taking an eco vacation may just be the planning! It can be tough just gauging your personal eco comfort level. Sure, it’s easy to say certain things, like that you’d only stay at a 100% sustainable hotel, or that you want your vacation to be completely relaxing and you promise to leave your laptop behind.

But will these statements hold up as truths once it’s time to take action?

Or will you refuse purchasing biodegradable sunscreen to take on your snorkeling trip on the grounds that, well, you know, you’re too busy? If you plan ahead, you can take care of all those little things. Buying biodegradable sunblock is a piece of cake compared to staying somewhere with no electricity!

Ecotourism is a burgeoning field, and most people are still only learning about it, they’re still new at the whole “ecotourism thing.”

In a few months, I will be taking a vacation with a couple of people who have never gone on an eco vacation. Now, while one of them, my mother, is enthusiastic about renewable energy sources, turning off the lights when leaving a room, and not littering, she is fanatical about drying her hair post-shower and taking her Blackberry everywhere.

Let the negotiations begin!

She will probably be surprised, if not shocked, when I suggest a lodge with a sustainable wastewater management system and no air conditioning. A lot of people just don’t know how deep green living can take you!

I wonder how far I’ll be able to take her. I’ll keep you updated.

Xcacel-Xcacelito

Ludivina Menchaca Castellano, senator of Quintana Roo, deserves a gigantic thumbs up.

She is asking the authorities to stand up for Xcacel-Xcacelito. Menchaca Castellano might be one of the too few to be disheartened about the incompetence and selfishness of state and federal authorities for not doing their job of looking after Mexico’s protected ecosystems-in this case, the turtle reserve at Xcacel-Xcacelito.

She pointed out that the General Wildlife Law, while prohibiting any construction in mangrove zones, doesn’t, well, exactly work. Essentially, it is not so much prohibitive as it is restrictive. It doesn’t stop touristic developments from being built in the country.

An augercast pile grid

Investors must understand, then, that ways have changed, she said: “we currently count on new technologies that allow for construction that abides by the new ecological parameters, in other words, the mangrove can be protected through new building methods-in which you use piles-so as not to touch the mangrove and permit the hydrological flow to take its course.”

It seems that thanks to Menchaca Castellano, investors taking part in the local ecocide must restructure and adapt their plans in order to minimally affect the mangrove. In most of Mexico’s tourist spots, thus far, the concept of ecology has been in absentia.

Menchaca Castellano is encouraging authorities throughout Mexico to keep their eyes on the aforementioned turtle haters of Xcacel-Xcacelito-I mean, the investors-so they don’t get away with anything illegal, causing a catastrophe for the loggerheads and other turtles that depend on the neighboring coast to nest every year.

The senator stressed that the relevant authorities must do their job, and particularly in Quintana Roo, where the ecosystem has been most attacked. Protecting the Xcacel-Xcacelito reserve will be one of the Environmental Commission’s priorities, she said.

Finally!

Now, they will probably be using augercast or CFA piles, which cause the least environmental disturbance, even in terms of noise pollution. (See a diagram.) But, you know, the pumping of concrete mix down the auger and into the ground, is going to be felt no matter what. And the yelling of the construction workers. And the noise made by the cement mixers, the trucks, and so on.

The lesser of two evils is still evil. Shouldn’t we just leave the remaining reserves and preserved ecosystems alone to thrive? Do we even need more hotels?

Scratch that-stupid question-of course we do! It’s only right that the developers’ and investors’ pockets keep getting fatter and the environment be continually desecrated.  Silly me.

Xcacel-Xcacelito. Photo by Titti Alvarado

It all started over a decade ago, with Sol Melía’s unsuccessful attempts at destroying the Xcacel-Xcacelito ecosystem (Quintana Roo, Mexico) for the sake of his hotel chain. Environmental activists have been able to steer Melía off course, but the time might have come for his success in 2009.

The selfish, über-capitalist, global-warming-loving Melía has apparently acquired the necessary permits to build right by a reserve, Xcacel-Xcacelito, which would essentially eradicate it.

This fragile ecosystem is where different species of near-endangered turtles, such as loggerheads and green turtles, go to nest every year. Biologists try to protect their eggs from predators at night during this time of year (May-October).

It seems that Melía’s multinational corporation’s been lobbying, all the while receiving the unconditional blessings of the Spanish government through its embassy in Mexico, if not directly through their Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, another awesome man of the people out to make the world a better place.

Zapatero visited Mexico last year to show his support for the recently “elected” President Felipe Calderón, and to reciprocate the visit he had previously made to Spain. During these meetings, the guilty parties partied with the main Spanish multinational corporations, who just happened to be investing in Mexico. (What a series of coincidences!)

They are all also linked via the Universidad de Quintana Roo (UQROO), Governor Félix González Canto,  and the powerful Quintana Roo Xcaret Group of investors.

I guess the Spanish government and Melía belong to the Global Warming is a Myth! group. Probably to the We’re Corporatists, We’re Rich So We Don’t Care About the Rest of the World group, too. Or maybe they’re just mindless jerks (I’m watching my language, here).

If only more people knew about these developments! If only the mainstream media worked to enlighten instead of to please the corporations that feed it. Part of the work we can do to solve the issues of corporations trying to literally make a killing, is support independent media, help it grow by spreading the word about it to help disseminate the issues we care about that FOX and other poisonous networks wants to cover up.

Read more here, here, and here (in Spanish).

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