TIDE Tours (Toledo Institute for Development and Environment) - Local Participation

The level of local participation in TIDE's (Toledo Institute for Development and Environment) ecotourism is minimal. The organisation as a whole has some twenty employees working from TIDE’s office in Punta Gorda, an ethnic mixture of Creoles, East Indians, Garifunas and Americans. None are Mayas. This is typical of most Belizean organisations whether governmental or non-governmental. Stewart Krohn, managing director of Channel 5 television in Belize, states that “If you go to a meeting of the Mundo Maya you won’t find a Maya there, except maybe serving dinner” [Gunner, 1996, cited in Mowforth & Munt, 1998, p.239]. TIDE’s ecotourism subsidiary is run by one of the Americans, employing a further twenty guides of which only a few are Mayas. Any decisions concerning TIDE’s operations in general are made by TIDE executive chairman Will Maheia, while ecotourism initiatives are organized solely by Erika Diamond. The local communities are usually consulted in the decision making process, but wield no real power. A committee has been set up for the Port of Honduras Marine Reserve – there are thirteen members, some of whom have been elected to represent the surrounding communities, the remainder being local politicians. However the committee is only for consultation. Unlike the TEA, there is clearly no democratic structure within TIDE. Erika Diamond admits that “Some people would say we don’t have enough local community involvement”. As a result, TIDE has failed to gain much support in the community and Campbell [1999, p.536] notes that this is quite often the case for such “top-down” tourism initiatives “…in spite of their provision of monetary benefits to local people”.

As with the TEA, there is also the potential for favoritism concerning TIDE’s operations. I previously noted the rangers’ lack of vigilance when patrolling the marine reserve. A striking example of this was told to me by one of TIDE’s guides – he said he had witnessed illegal fishing taking place in a completely restricted zone near Middle Snake Caye and warned the fishermen, who waved away his concerns. The patrol boat that subsequently appeared turned a blind eye, because some of those fishing were related to TIDE’s boss, Will Maheia, who happened to be on the patrol boat at the time – hardly an example of TIDE’s supposed “outstanding effort in biodiversity conservation (and poverty reduction)” [2002 UNDP Equator Prize Award].

X. IV. TIDE – Toledo Institute for Development and Environment - neo-colonialist policies?

TIDE’s various operations concerning conservation and ecotourism are strongly influenced by international Non-Governmental Organisations (mainly The Nature Conservancy), upon whom they rely for funding. These NGO’s do not freely provide funds – they have to be asked for a grant for a specific project. If funding is to be secured, the projects have to appeal to international NGO’s, who therefore have great influence over TIDE’s practices. An evaluation of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) publications such as “Compatible Economic Development: Ecotourism, a workbook for conservation organisations from Latin America ” [1995] provides insight into TIDE’s organisation. This workbook uses the terms “nature tourism” and “ecotourism” interchangeably and fails to grasp the importance ecotourism attaches to local participation. TNC (The Nature Conservancy) places great emphasis on the preservation of the physical environment and sees tourism as being a tool for conservation, just as TIDE does. The publication asserts that:

“One objective of generating economic benefits to local people is sometimes to provide enough benefits to get people to stop any activities they may do to harm the wildland” [TNC, 1995, section 2, p.2]

Such a practice is evident from TIDE’s employment of tour-guides and rangers who were previously fishermen. The publication does not assert that the local community should be involved but makes the suggestion: “Is there a way to involve local people in decision making about tourism?” [my emphasis; section 2, p.5] – this goes against the principle espoused in other ecotourism literature that asserts that the local community must be involved if they are to benefit and support the project. The publication later asserts that “A successful project can result in material, social or personal benefits to people or ecosystems” [my emphasis, section 2, p.6], and throughout places most emphasis on the physical environment. This contradicts most other literature that states that both the environment and the local population should benefit from eco-tourism.

TIDE’s “ecotourism” closely mirrors TNC’s vision of ecotourism, and is effectively indistinguishable from more general forms of small-scale tourism. Considering this external dominance over TIDE’s operations, the argument is made here that TIDE’s practices are a form of neo-colonialism. Direct benefits going to the local community are minimal, while the Developed World’s environmental concerns are imposed. Mowforth and Munt [1998] raise the question of who actually benefits from conservation in the Less Developed World. In the case of TIDE and Toledo , it is the Western tourists who benefit while the Developed World’s environmental concerns are addressed. For example, the only people who are allowed to fish freely in the Port of Honduras Marine Reserve are the tourists (and those members of the community with appropriate contacts within TIDE of course). Sherman and Dixon [1991, p.92] note that Westerners who donate to TNC often visit the areas the organisation has helped to protect. Having said this, the local fishing community will also benefit in the long-term, yet the imposed conservation policies are not overwhelmingly popular amongst the fishing communities [TIDE & TRIGOH publication, 2000, p.11]. Amongst the wider community, TIDE’s policies are even less popular, a fact acknowledged by Erika Diamond: “There’s a lot of people who slam TIDE…people get mad at us all the time – there’s a lot of miscommunication”. TIDE and TNC’s neo-colonialist policies have clearly given rise to poor community relations which threaten the success of their policies, a problem that is being addressed through a weekly local radio show (cynics might see this as a form of Western propaganda).

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