Advanced search

Activities in Tikal National Park

Tikal National Park

At Tikal National Park in Guatemala, the Institute of Anthropology and History, part of the culture ministry, is working to protect one of the world's most important ancient Mayan sites and part of the largest contiguous tropical rainforest in Central America, the Maya Biosphere Reserve.

Objective

  • Find sustainable economic alternatives to illegal hunting and the extraction of xate (a type of palm) and chicle.
  • Build environmental awareness among the local population

Outcomes

  • Students at Ecotourism Promoters Courses created tourism products including: bike tours to the Uaxactún ruins, kayaking in the lagoons of El Remate and hiking in the Cahuí protected area.
  • Nature guides trained by the project were certified for work in the park by the Guatemalan Institute of Tourism (INGUAT).
  • RARE launched a biological monitoring programme in partnership with Tikal National Park, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and members of local communities to monitor biodiversity within the park, to train park staff in these crucial activities and to underscore the link between project activities and the site's biodiversity.
  • Several tours were conducted as 'trial runs' after a series of training workshops during which nature guides and promoters finalised tour logistics, costs and marketing techniques. The author of The Rough Guide: Belize/Guatemala took the tour, along with a team of community development specialists from Sweden and several small business owners. One guide/promoter, Héctor Aldana, earned over $200 dollars, half of which he invested in community efforts to clean an airstrip in Uaxactún - a measure of his own conservation awareness as a graduate of two of the project's programmes.
  • Promoters are learning how to develop a business infrastructure that is financially capable of supporting and promoting new tourism products. They will be responsible for obtaining entrepreneurial loans from organisations including Rare. The collaborative efforts of nature guides and promoters will be further tested when their services are marketed more widely among an international clientele.
  • The park's Public Use Coordinator, Rare and The Nature Conservancy are working to define public use strategies for Tikal's Master Plan. The public use zone and its nature trail system have been refocused to a key area of the park containing the Mayan temples. The government, NGO and UN partners in this process have indicated that they would like to see public use planning replicated throughout the most heavily visited areas.
  • Together with Tikal National Park and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Rare conducted two training courses for six local community members from Socotzal and Uaxactún to enable them to monitor biological change in the park. The local field crew learned to collect and register data on xate palm and key fauna, particularly vertebrates. The data is being analysed by park staff and WCS as part of a strategy to measure the impact of the project's integrated ecotourism and awareness strategies on key flora and fauna, and also to ensure that park staff and community residents have the long-term capacity to study biological diversity in the park.
  • A Conservation Education Campaign (CEC) is being developed to promote a better understanding of the park as a source of both natural and cultural diversity. Additionally, the campaign will stimulate local support for the protection of the region's flora and fauna by addressing the issues surrounding illegal extraction of xate and wildlife.
  • Enterprise Development:The six month financial report for Conservation Tours Tikal - launched last year by three of our guide/entrepreneur trainees and one local entrepreneur with Rare support - showed that profits were over $5,000 with over $16,000 in total sales. Perhaps even more impressive and unprecedented in the ecotourism industry, over 90 percent of those revenues were retained in local communities. This initial report - signifying a milestone for our emerging business partner - indicates that most of the start-up costs of Conservation Tours Tikal have been recovered, putting the company in a strong position as it gears up for big tourism events such as the Easter holiday. A challenge that Rare is helping Conservation Tours Tikal with currently is identifying outside investment into much-needed equipment and a vehicle, which would lower their costs and make them more competitive in the market, and negotiating with the guides' association to ensure that Rare-trained guides can work alongside archaeological guides inside Tikal National Park.
  • Pride: Miguel Angel Vasquez has started his Pride campaign around the park, which is using the jaguar to instill pride in the area's natural resources. Miguel's campaign is targeting the threat of illegal wildlife collection and will work with adults, including restaurant owners, and schoolchildren

States parties

Sites

Geographical focus

  • Latin America and the Caribbean

Categories

Conservation of Cultural Sites , Conservation of Natural Sites , Forests