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Eco-tourism in Laos </h2>
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Tuesday, 17 February 2009 09:57 </span>
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Elise Potaka </span>
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<div id="jabookmarkWapper"></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><img class="caption" src="/images/stories/demo/ac/Laos_Ecotourism__web_.JPG" border="0" align="left"/></p><p class="MsoNormal"><img src="/images/stories/download-button.gif" border="0"/> <a href="/images/podcast/Data_170209/laos_ecotourism_final_bhs_inggris.mp3" onclick="window.open('/images/podcast/Data_170209/laos_ecotourism_final_bhs_inggris.mp3','','resizable=yes,width=400,height=200');return false;"><img src="/images/stories/listen-button.gif" border="0"/></a></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Laos has beautiful clean rivers and lush forest, and small villages with unique customs and culture.</span></strong> </p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">In the 1990’s annual visitor numbers were in the tens of thousands, but now the country welcomes around one million people each year. Tourism is one of the largest generators of foreign exchange.</span></strong></p> <p><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">In particular, the eco-tourism sector has flourished, with nature and culture-based tourism accounting for nearly half of all visits.</span></strong></p> <p><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">To find out more, Elise Potaka visited the Laos’s first eco-tourism project in Luang Nam Tha province.</span></strong></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">It’s a sunny day on the Nam Tha river in northern Laos. In a long narrow motorboat, we head downstream past children bathing and fishing in the shallows.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">This is part of the Nam Ha, a national protected area of around 220 000 hectares.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">I’ve come here with Mick, an assistant tour guide with the local government-run eco-tourism office.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">We stop at villages along the river, and Mick introduces different aspects of local life…the crops they grow, the types of houses they live in, and any special customs.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">“Lantan - they plant rubber trees, rice, pumpkin, cassava. They have a primary school also.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">For lunch, we sit down on one of the shady banks.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Mick and the boatmen scramble through the undergrowth, picking a local herb to add to the sticky rice and curry we brought with us.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">“Pak Kut, we boil or steam, eat with chilli sauce, it’s local food.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Mick picks some extra Pak Kut to take back to his mother.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Mick used to work in his family’s restaurant, but this new job can help him improve his English and bring in his own income.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">At the moment he’s in training to become a lead guide. But first he must pass a test.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Bun Tha, manager of the Nam Ha Ecotourism Service.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">“We train them in English and policy and conservation, and hospitality. We have to test, so next month we invite some foreigners or experts from eco-toursim to test them about English and then we take them to make a tour, like trekking, like…who do best.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">The service is part of the Nam Ha Ecotourism project which began in 1999 with the aim of creating locally-managed, community-based tourism.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Now proceeds from tourists are shared throughout the villages, and the emphasis is on preserving culture and the environment.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">“The money that we will pay for food, directly to the local people, and handicraft, and sleeping in the village and transportation from the local tuk-tuk. The local guides we took from villages around the city. Some people were hunters, when they were hunters they only hunt for wildlife to sell in the market, they get money only one time. Now they can take some tourist to see wildlife so they can get money many time.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Here in Lantan village, the women make up a song which talks about how their lives are improving. They say they have a better income and more access to education.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Villager Bo Kham describes one of the changes to the women’s lives.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">“Before women would just stay and work in the house and some had forgotten how to make our traditional handicrafts. But the project revived this. Now we can make handicrafts and earn some money for ourselves.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">The women hand-sew and embroider bags and shoes, not just to sell to tourists, but to use for themselves.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">And the proceeds are shared around. Stephen Schipani, now an advisor to the Laos Tourism Administration, was previously a technical advisor to the Nam Ha Ecotourism Project.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">“We can say now - there’s been a number of external evaluations done - that it’s creating good employment and income generating activities amongst the villages, pretty equitably distributed amongst the families, especially amongst men and women and amongst the different ethnic groups. There’s generally these systems in place, whether it’s a rotational system or village development funds, that the villagers are able to access, and the villagers are generally happy about it.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">The Nam Ha model is now being used as a base for other tourism programs across Laos.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">But there are still challenges ahead.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">By providing villagers with other income means, the government wanted to stop the illegal hunting of wildlife and clearing of forest.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">But, Stephen Schipani says, enforcement needs to be improved.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">“Although we raised a lot of awareness and we arranged funds for protected area management, there’s not a lot of protected area managers that are employed. There’s very good government policy in place, but having the people in place to go out and implement this policy, they’re often not there. And when they are there, they often need more training, they need more income and equipment and things like this.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Another problem is the increase in rubber plantations in the area. The hills along the Nam Tha River are lined with rubber trees. Villagers here believe that rubber sold to China, just across the border, will bring in quick cash.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">But Bun Tha at the local eco-tourism service says the promise of short-term cash can sometimes blind villagers to the longer-term potential of eco-tourism.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">“I think eco-tourism now has helped them to get more benefits, just a little bit of benefits. But they don’t care about the future, they need only money very quickly. They like to grow rubber trees, but all the tourists visit Laos they don’t want to see rubber trees, they need fresh air, forest.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">The Laos government has just put a moratorium on all new rubber plantations in Luang Nam Tha while they assess the impacts on the local economy and culture.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">But at the moment it’s unclear how this will be enforced at a local village level.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Here at Sup Sim, not far from Lantan, locals say that rubber now brings in more money than tourism.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">On the Nam Tha River, the boatman heads back upstream to where our journey began.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">This is just one of the many trips tourists here can take – there are also overnight jungle treks and bicycle rides through villages.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">Everyone involved gets a share of the benefits. The guide, the boatmen and the villagers walk away with some money which they can feed back into their communities.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri">And the tourists benefit from the kind of local knowledge and insight that even the best guide book can’t provide. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Calibri"> </span></p></div>
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Last Updated ( Friday, 29 May 2009 11:33 )
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<p><span style="color: #800000;"><b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Bangladesh the first country in the world to ban plastic bags</span></b>:</span> Bangladesh was the first country to impose a nationwide ban of plastic bags. Ten years old this month, the government slapped an outright ban on all polythene bags after they were found to have been the main culprit during the 1988 and 1998 floods that submerged two-thirds of the country. It has successfully cleaned up the streets and drains of the country, while stimulating a re-birth of the jute bag industry. Farzana Rupa reports from the drains of Dhaka.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #800000;"><b>Pakistan’s Rat Children:</b></span> If you visit Shah Daula shrine in the central punjab province of Pakistan you will be asked for money by beggars will tiny heads. They are often called the Chooha or Rat people. They suffer from microcephalics a genetic disorder that leaves people withsmall skulls and protruding noses and ears. And as Yaseer Khan reports their value as beggars is enormous.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;" align="justify"><span style="color: #800000; font-size: 10pt;"><strong>These stories and much more this week </strong></span></p>
<div align="center"><span style="color: #800000; font-size: 10pt;"><strong>on Asia Calling: </strong></span></div>
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<h4><span style="color: #800000; font-size: 10pt;"><strong>Your Window on Asia </strong></span></h4>
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