Ecotourism; or, how to ruin a perfectly good park

On our way out of Guadalajara we decided to stop and camp for the night at a National Park a few hours east of the city. The park was represented by an enormous green blob on our map, so we thought there would be many kilometres of hiking trails to keep us occupied for the afternoon.

On arriving, we were suprised to find hundreds of cars in the parking lot, still, we thought there should be plenty of room for everybody. On entering the park we were taken aback - it was only about 5 hectares! There was a tiny lake - they called it a lake, but I`d call it a pond - with a narrow stretch of grass on either side of it, onto which were packed scores of picknicking families, dozens of ramshackle restaurants, and numerous souvenir shops. Bands of local children roamed the shore, forelornly attempting to sell generic, factory-made baubles which they presented as the products of `local artisans´. Troops of mariachis wandered by, playing songs for a few pesos. As for a quiet place to enjoy a bit of nature, it was nowhere to be found.

Inquiring as to the whereabouts of the advertised camping spaces, we were informed that they were on a small playing field inbetween the souvenir shops and the mariachis. We decided to move on and spend the night in a hotel.

The following day - still hankering for a bit of the ol` nature after our unsatisfying experience the day before - we decided to stop at the famed Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary. These amazing creatures make an annual pilgrimage all the way from Canada to one specific region in Mexico, and back. Biologists spent decades searching for their winter sanctuary - in all the wrong countries - before finally "discovering" it a few decades ago. I say discovering sceptically because I`m fairly sure the discovery involved being told about the site by the local people, who`d probably known about it for centuries.

The monarch population had been dwindling for years, due to habitat destruction and certain genetically-modified crops which, modified to produce pesticides internally, unsuprisingly poison the butterflies who pollinate them. The monarchs have been making a surprise comeback, however, and we were both eager to see their winter sanctuary.

There were two locations listed in our guide book for viewing the butterflies, so we decided to pick the one described as "less-touristed", especially considering our experience the day before. But what we found was not exactly a tranquil mountain reserve...instead it turned out to be an eco-tourism disaster, in my opinion. Eco-tourism is one of the new buzz words in Latin America (and elsewhere, too, I`m sure), and theoretically it describes a situation which allows local people to make a living off of alternative tourism, instead of living by depleting the natural resources in the area. But in this case, the promise of its rewards seemed to be just a cruel hoax, with the local people continuing to live in tremendously poor conditions, and reduced to essentially begging tourists for their money, in return for the services they provide. These included young children (6 or 7) crowding around, pleading for the chance to "guard" our car for a few pesos; and dozens of men with horses offering a ride up the mountain...selling the chance to ride comfortably, while they literally ran ahead of or behind the horse the whole way. But it`s not the idea of selling services to tourists that bothered me (although these services seemed quite demeaning), it`s the urgency and insistency heard in the voices of the people selling them that seemed so wrong. Too many people selling the same thing to too few buyers has resulted in humiliating conditions all around.

The worst part is that the insistency expressed by the people is one of the factors that impedes the sale of a service, because - at least in my case - it becomes too overwhelming to be approached either over and over again, or simultaneously by numerous people, all trying to sell the same thing. I found myself refusing to entertain the idea of spending tourist money, simply because it was too hard to know where to spend it. If one person had tried to sell me a horse ride, I might have taken it (if he had not been set to run behind), for the mountain was in fact very steep...I could have used a horse! But with twenty people coming at me at once, I could only turn them all down. Especially coming from a culture where it has been very important for women to be respected when they say ´no´, I felt very awkward having groups of men all press closely around me at once to try to convince me to do something I didn`t want. At times I felt like yelling at them that I had already said `"No, thank you, I`d rather walk", and why the fuck wasn`t that enough of an answer?

But I know that it wasn`t enough because that answer means less food, or less clothing, or less of something for them and their families, so they need to keep begging and pleading and pushing until someone says `yes´. And that`s the real tragedy of eco-tourism, that it reduces all sides to participating in this awkward and humiliating trap.


The tough part about seeing the butterflies is that they only fly when it is sunny. It was sunny when we set out, but after the two hour trek up the mountain, thick clouds had rolled in, obscuring any sign of the sun. So by the time we got to the butterflies, they were resting, literally hanging around in the trees. Thousands and thousands on every branch, weighing the branches down until they hung towards the ground instead of reaching for the sky. It was quite amazing, but it would have been nice to see them fly...