Country: Nicaragua

Organization: Finca Esperanza Verde Ecolodge

Year the initiative began: 1998

Project Website: www.fincaesperanzaverde.org/

Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions:

• Main barrier addressed: Lack of local input
• Main insight addressed: Incorporate sustainable practices

What is the goal of your innovation?
To create real, tangible benefits for local people by sharing their local culture, history, and natural environment with world travelers.

How does your approach support or embody geotourism?
Finca Esperanza Verde combines the natural beauty of Nicaragua's Caribbean slope with the warmth of its people. FEV is an extension of this part of the world, making rural, Northern Nicaraguan culture more accessible to those visitors who choose to visit us. All of the staff in the finca are local, as we aim to represent precisely this local culture to the world. Each activity at the finca is intended to bring the visitor into closer contact with this local culture, or with the natural surroundings of the finca. Our goal for our visitors is to truly experience this natural and cultural beauty of Northern Nicaragua. Our goal for the project is to create positive impacts in the local community through these visits. We also embody the geoturism ideal by striving to preserve the natural environment of the finca. We only use renewable energy sources (solar panels and hydro-electric power) and protect our water sources (our springs have been declared suitable for human consumption, right out of the ground). Nicaragua’s amazing beauty is founded on its natural patrimony and preserving the wilderness remains a central goal of the project. The majority of visitors to FEV come for our world-class birding.

Describe your approach in detial. How is it innovative?
FEV was one of the first ecotourism projects in all of Nicaragua. Founded in 1998, FEV won several international awards in 2004 for our unique approach to sustainable tourism and preservation. FEV’s innovation is our approach to economic development. Run like a private business, FEV aims to grow our gross income rather than our net income. With profits made in ecotourism, we strive to employ more local people, and involve more community members with projects and programs. Using a business mentality has proven successful in this community, as FEV jobs are considered some of the best in the area. In addition to providing jobs, using ecotourism to generate project donations is a completely unique concept in Nicaragua. As the original goal of the project, FEV is now directly sponsoring large infrastructure projects throughout the county. Tourism revenue has been used to build schools, rural water systems, and even rebuild the water system for the county capital of San Ramon. Nowhere in Nicaragua can a similar project be found that provides our kind of high-quality employment and makes the same kind of project donations. FEV has been the clear leader in ecotourism in Northern Nicaragua for the past 5 years, with 3 major international awards to our credit.

What types of partnerships or professional developement would be most beneficial in spearding your innovation?
FEV would be helped by networking with organizations in an attempt to market our name and product. Currently, FEV only markets through word-of-mouth and by participating in sustainable tourism competitions. While our publicity has been overwhelmingly positive, we lack mainstream status due to our relative distance from Nicaragua’s “tourism triangle” (Granada – Leon – San Juan. As an organization, FEV would like to be in more contact with similar destinations world-wide. Our data-base of former customers would be valuable to those places seeking to find visitors. Likewise, access to other organization’s clients would be useful for us as we strive to grow.

In one sentence describe what kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
FEV creates a quality economic land use alternative to deforestation and other non-sustainable land tenure practices common in Nicaragua.

Describe the degree of success of your approach to date. Clearly define how you measure quantitative and qualitative impact in terms of how your approach contributes to the sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
FEV has been, relative to other similar Projects in Nicaragua, very successful in creating a community based tourism experience in a local community. Our easiest measure of quantitative impact in the local community is the $32,500 of direct project financing donated by FEV. FEV’s other tangible impacts include the employment created in the local community (25 fulltime jobs), and supporting numerous community outreach events and programs. FEV works hard to ensure that tourism in San Ramon does not bring unwanted negative impacts. FEV does not permit hard liquor or drugs or any kind, and we discourage drinking by staff members in their spare time. Several FEV employees are recovering alcoholics, and our goal is to provide them healthy working environment. Finally, FEV is one of the county’s most well-preserved pieces of land. Our Private Nature Reserve status ensures us environmental protection as though we were a national park. In the Matagalpa region, most land use practices are non-sustainable. By combining organic agriculture and ecotourism, FEV is an example of an economically sustainable, yet non exploitative, system of land use.

How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
Our most popular activity at FEV is our bonfire with local music under the stars. FEV’s neighbors, a local family of coffee farmers, play traditional Nicaraguan music on guitar, bass, and requinto. FEV charges $50, 40 of which goes directly to this family, for this bonfire with music. We usually receive 10-15 locals from surrounding farms, plus the visitors and the band. The result is always a hilarious mix of mountain dancing, awkward gringos, and laughing. We a happy to sponsor these kinds of interactions, bringing rural Nicaraguans in touch with people from all over the world.

In what ways are local residents actively involved in your innovation, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
In addition to our 25 full time staff, FEV also stimulates and interacts with the local community in several ways. FEV regularly sponsors community events or programs, recent examples being a folkloric dance festival and a campesino-league baseball team. In each case, FEV provides modest funding for a community based initiative, an event or program designed primarily for the community and not necessarily for visitors. We allow local collaborators to remain in charge of these projects, applying their vision to each project. The results have been overwhelmingly successful, creating friendship and alliances in the community.

Describe how your innovation helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues. How do you motivate them to act responsibly in their future travel decisions?
Our longest running outreach program is the youth Guide Club we sponsor in San Ramón. We train local youths to guide for visitors to San Ramón, sharing folk tales and heritage, and navigating people about town. While this club cannot be called fulltime work, we are proud of the several generations of young people that have passed through the club, and their commitment to guiding. The club also helps preserve the local folklore and history, as each member must know how San Ramon came to be, as well as several of the local folktales and myths (giant snakes guarding gold!).

Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? What is the potential demand for your innovation?
FEV has been completely financially solvent for the past 3 years. The initial 6 years required modest subsidies from the Sister Community Project, but FEV is now completely sustainable and independent. Indeed, we are now able to donate relatively larges sums towards the Sister Community’s project fund. This ability to generate project donations was the original idea behind FEV. In the past 2 years, FEV has donated 20,000 dollars towards the improvement and expansion of San Ramón’s drinking water project. The finca previously sponsored the construction of a rural primary school ($5,000), and $7,000 towards another water project.

How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
FEV is financed primarily through tourism and visitors, and secondarily through organic coffee sales (both export and in-country sales). Using our 2006-2007 numbers, FEV grossed $140,200 with an annual budget of $96,700. This net gain of $43,500 reflects the development model of FEV. We aim to maximize not our net gain but rather our gross, in order to reinvest the money generated by FEV directly into the community. We hope to continue growing sustainably, creating more local employment and project contributions. Our strategy for the coffee business is similar. Although we do gross a relatively large amount ($25,600), we spend nearly all of that on production costs ($24,800). Our goal is to provide a model coffee farm, including high wages and quality jobs. In the coming year, we expect to net a larger profit from coffee production ($10,000 est.). We hope to reinvest this money in community projects.

What is your plan to expand your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
FEV income has grown approximately 50% each of the past two years. While we are happy with this success, we must be remain cautious and continue to grow sustainably. It is our goal to grow the overall scale of the project, to employ more people in tourism attention, guiding, forest protection, coffee agriculture, and organic produce production. We feel that the real key to the project is providing quality employment locally, and involving as many locals as possible. We hope to continue to reinvest a large portion of our gross earnings in salaries and project contributions.

What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
The largest limitation of our project is our relative distance from the tourism “hot spots” of Nicaragua (Granada, Leon, San Juan). In our first 6 years, the project was simply not financially solvent due to the low number of visitors and tourists in Northern Nicaragua. Little by little, as tourism has spread into the Northern Highlands, we have benefited from this current. FEV remains at the forefront of tourism destinations in Matagalpa, but we still have a long way to go. As word spreads about Northern Nicaragua, more and more tourists make the trip from the Pacific side attractions. The other major barrier to local expansion is the local economy itself. FEV has been a relatively large investment, over a long term, compared to the local economy. The most limiting factor to replication is simply finding financiers that are willing to truly invest in a community, and who are willing to wait a long time in order to see results. FEV is an example that community based rural tourism projects in Nicaragua can be successful, but it is also an example of how long this process may take. We hope that in time, many similar projects will exist in Nicaragua.

What is the origin of your innovation? Tell your story.
When purchased in 1997 Finca Esperanza Verde was an abandoned coffee farm on a muddy track. Since that time Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua has renovated and replanted the coffee, rebuilt the road, built an ecological coffee processing facility and built a ecotourism lodge for 22 guests mostly on the income from selling Café San Ramón™ in North Carolina. When visiting the farm you can learn all about growing coffee in an environmentally responsible way, by participating in the care of the coffee bushes, making compost and during the coffee harvest season, November through February, picking, processing, and sorting the green coffee. If you desire, you can follow the coffee to Matagalpa where it is sun dried, sorted, graded, cupped and exported. The farm's all-Nicaraguan staff enjoy teaching visitors about coffee and are proud that their care of the farm makes it a home to hundreds of species of birds, butterflies, mammals, trees and orchids. The 220-acre certified organic farm has 28 acres (16 manzanas) of arabica coffee that flourishes under the shade of the farm's extensive tropical forest canopy. Coffee production has doubled each year for 3 years and we will soon be producing 5-10 tons of rich, high quality coffee annually. The farm is a leader in the local, small, organic coffee growers cooperative where it has organized educational events and developed important markets for San Ramón's shade grown, organic and fair traded coffee in North Carolina and the southeastern US with our partners Counter Culture Coffee and Inter-American Importers.

Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
Finca Esperanza Verde was founded in 1998 by Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua, a non-profit organization based in Durham, North Carolina (USA). Its mission is to strengthen friendship and cooperation between San Ramón, Nicaragua and Durham, North Carolina through people to people exchanges and social and economic development projects which support justice and our belief in an interdependent, one-world family.

Please write an overview of your project. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the Google map located on teh competition homepage.
Finca Esperanza Verde (Green Hope Farm) Ecologde, Organic Coffee Farm and Nature Preserve, is a cool, green and tranquil paradise located in the lush mountains of central Nicaragua (1,200 m/ 4000 feet elevation - see map). You will find beautiful sunsets, peaceful moments, delicious food, as well as educational and recreational activities. The farm, ecolodge and nature reserve run by local staff offers comfortable lodging for 26 guests, shade-grown organic coffee, rainforest walks over well marked trails and other natural wonders. Finca Esperanza Verde is a sustainable tourism project owned by Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua, a non-profit 501 c 3 organization run by volunteers in the U.S. All income stays in San Ramón, providing an environmentally-friendly source of income for local people and financial resources for community projects.

Contact Information
Mr. Giff Laube
Manager
Finca Esperanza Verde Ecolodge
Apartado 28, Matagalpa, NICARAGUA
fincaesperanzaverde@gmail.com