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LATIN AMERICA |
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From Coca Growers to Rural Tourism Promoters
in Colombia
By Roberto Rojas Monroy
SAN RAFAEL, Colombia – After years spent
growing coca leaf, the raw material of
cocaine, a hundred families have become
promoters of rural tourism along the
Colombian Caribbean.
Celso Lopez, 53, is one of those benefiting
from this new source of income, but he shows
no shame in admitting that in the past he
was deeply into illicit coca growing.
He, like dozens of families, is part of a
promising project to substitute livelihoods
from illegal crops on the edge of the
Tayrona Natural Park on the Caribbean by
instead taking advantage of the great
touristic potential of its spectacular
scenery.
A few years ago, after a government
eradication campaign against illicit crops,
these families welcomed a plan to change
their way of life.
They began to promote rural tourism by
joining a government program called Forest
Ranger Families for Social Action.
This Colombian organization offers
assistance to millions of displaced persons
and to those hurt by the armed conflict that
has devastated the country for more than
four decades, as well as to those left
homeless by natural disasters.
With a sincere smile, businessman Lopez told
Efe how after years of economic ups and
downs, in a period of crisis he
“interspersed” among his coffee plantations
2 hectares (nearly 5 acres) of coca.
“Today I can say that I contribute more to
peace in Colombia and to the tranquillity of
my family” by managing country cabins for
tourists in the foothills of the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, Lopez said.
The 118 Forest Ranger Families began
eradicating their own coca plantations, and
since then have cared for the environment
while saving half of the funds the
government pays them in order to buy a piece
of land.
In that way the former coca growers acquired
the San Rafael farm covering 354 hectares
(874 acres), on which they built
ecotouristic inns.
These are cabins in the jungle near
plantations of coffee, plantain, cacao and
fruit trees. They have also installed ponds
for fish farming.
“We’re in the buffer zone for the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta to protect the water
and oxygen for future generations,” Lopez
said, adding that his new job lets him live
“happier and more peacefully,” even though
he only earns enough to survive.
The Forest Ranger Families project has
helped create a “new social fabric” and a
“changed life” for hundreds of people, said
Lopez, who alternates his main activity with
that of a tourist guide.
The Colombian’s five cabins are nestled amid
lush natural scenery, with a crystal-clear
river running along stone paths and routes
that lead to dream-like prospects, to
tropical rain forests, to birdwatching, all
just a short distance from the Caribbean
Sea.
Others among these one-time coca families,
also hurt in the past by the conflict and
forced displacement, are now dedicated
beekeepers.
One of them is Oscar Naranjo, owner of 20
beehives on a family farm near the town of
Bonda, close to Santa Marta and the Sierra
Nevada.
Naranjo sometimes prays that it doesn’t rain
too much, but also that the summer doesn’t
last too long.
“Any extreme leaves the trees without
flowers, and without flowers there’s no
honey,” the beekeeper, who supports his
family to a great extent on what the bees
produce, told Efe.
He, like Lopez, talks of the “happiness and
tranquillity” that his work on the farm
gives him, now that all his activities are
legal. EFE
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