First Impressions

Imagine that you’re starting high school as a freshmen all over again; you don’t know where any of your classes are, your stomach isn’t even sure it can hold down breakfast because the butterflies in your stomach have now become giant wasps bussing around inside you looking for a way out, and you don’t even have a brand new Jamesport backpack to help you make it through, you are just stuck with your old bag from middle school, who knows if you’re gonna make it through the day.  That’s what it feels like to fly all the way from Colorado to Guayaquil, Ecuador so that you can live the next three months on a desert island with a whole new family, culture, and language that aren’t your own. I kept myself calm for all of the plane flights by just not thinking about what it was going to be like, I was just going to get there and everything would be fine, or so I hoped.  

It is no easy feat to get from Guayaquil to Puerto Villamil, a small port town with a population of 2,800 people on the far west island Isabel in the Galapagos Archipelago, my new home. We took a plane to Baltra Island, hopped a bus to the port, took a boat from the port, with all our luggage precariously perched on the top, to Santa Cruz, and from Santa Cruz we popped onto another boat for two hours to finally arrive in Puerto Villamil. It was at this point when we were moving from the speed boat to the taxi which would take us to the actual dock that I started to feel those wasps in my stomach and it was most definitely not because of the boat ride we just took. What if my Spanish wasn’t up to par? What if my family didn’t like me or didn’t want to spend time with me? Was I doomed to just be a floater in their home never really integrating into the family? That’s what I really wanted; to become apart of their family, to form a connection that would last a lifetime, or at least the next three months I hope.  

On the docks I was surprised to learn that the families were actually waiting for us at the IOI facility, I had about 6 minutes to prepare myself, I spent most of it trying to keep the wasps inside my stomach, not out. At the IOI campus there they were, all the parents lined up, sitting under a green tent, calmly waiting, how could they be calm right now? They were about to let complete strangers into their homes, a bunch of college students who may or may not be able to speak Spanish coming into their lives, and they seemed unfazed. All of the students lined up in front of the families and Amanda, the international coordinator for IOI had us play a game to find our family, each student had a paper with an animal name on it and each family who the student belonged to had a matching animal on their own paper, we the students had to make that animals noises and sounds so that our new island parents could find us.  

Why did I have to get a horse? Of all the animals that make sounds I cannot imitate a horse, and what was I suppose to do? Gallop around the IOI yard at full canter so my family can see that I’m full on crazy? I still cringe internally a bit at that particular moment. Luckily my family found me before I had to go to such lengths, and suddenly when my dad Freddy and my mom Jenny ran up to me and gave me one of the most memorable hugs of my life, I didn’t feel so worried. They looked at me like a was already some one important to them, Freddy didn’t remove his arms from around my shoulders until we left IOI to go home, I felt like he was trying to make sure I knew I was theirs and that they wanted to make sure I made it home with them.  

In my house my little sister Julie ran up and hugged me around the legs, her little 6-year-old arms reaching to their max capacity to get all the way around my legs. She was the best icebreaker for my arrival home; I thought she might be shy with me as some young kids are with strangers, but Julie could never be shy, and her bravery was infectious! When I tried my rusty Spanish out with them for the first time, sitting around the dinning room table it was amazing. They told me I spoke great Spanish and their compliments made me fearless, adding to my efforts to talk with them. We fell into a natural flow of conversation, them occasionally having to decipher what I was trying to explain via my pantomiming of various things, laughing as we went and my hand gestures became sillier and sillier. This new family was definitely going to work out, I could feel it.  

I don’t know when it happened exactly, but one by one all 15 of us students have now started to call our host family our true family here; we have to clarify when we are talking about our parents or siblings here on the Island or back in the US. My mom is just my mom here, it’s easier but also she treats me like I am her daughter, making sure I am doing what I need to, even reprimanding me for forgetting to lock my door when I leave the house. Just last night she locked my bedroom door for me, and when I came home panicked that I had forgot to bring my keys with me and that I was locked out, she let me panic for a split second and then told me where the keys were, saying she had locked it to keep Julie my younger sister out and that I must take my keys with me from now on. This may be a small island community but I am not treated like an outsider, the people here are loving and friendly, wanting to talk with you just to learn more about you. I think I have found exactly what I was hoping I would here, a new family and people to have a deep bond with for the rest of my life.  

History of ecotourism

Ecotourism has a history that is continuing to grow as more travelers look to travel with an eye on environmental conservation and more countries sustainably incorporate these travelers in their local economies and environments. Although ecotourism has a relatively short history, much has occurred since the term first made its appearance in the dictionary less than 40 years ago.

As long as people have stood on two feet, they have been traveling. Since the dawn of time, people have traveled for reasons relating to war, religion, trade, education, relaxation, leisure, entertainment and more. In the classical world, it was mainly the privileged elite that had the means to travel for amusement or entertainment. Indeed, the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all established infrastructure such as roads, seaside resorts, and maps to facilitate travel throughout the ancient world.

With the onset of the industrial revolution, however, traveling or touring became available to the masses. Railroads, improved roads, cars, domestic air travel, and other modes of transportation all made traveling accessible to large amounts of people, and with it the motivations for travel also began to change. As tourism became a formalized industry, people could choose from an assortment of travel options. You could take a day trip to the beach a few miles up the road; you could get in a bus to travel across state lines to take in a ball game or see a relative that had since moved away; or you could jump in an airplane to go on safari in the African jungle.

All these possibilities had not always been available to people living in the world of yesteryear. As people began to take advantage of these exciting and unique opportunities associated with the industrial revolution, the not-so-hidden cost of such opportunities began to become known. Air pollution, deforestation, mass extinction of species, global warming, and sea-level rise have all more-or-less been popularly attributed to the many after-effects of the industrial revolution.

Ecotourism was first conceptualized in the early 1980s as a type of travel for people who wanted to learn about different and exotic environments without causing the environmental harm or damage associated with other forms of tourism. It became an official term in 1982 when it was recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, and read thusly:

“ecotourism, n. ... Tourism to areas of ecological interest (typically exotic and often threatened natural environments), esp. to support conservation efforts and observe wildlife; spec. access to an endangered environment controlled so as to have the least possible adverse effect.”

Ecotourism gained momentum in the 1990s with environmental conservation and recognizing the planet an exhaustible resource becoming a mainstream consideration. Today, ecotourism continues to grow as more people travel with environmental consciousness. In 2002, the United Nations declared it the year of ecotourism, and in 2003 the Center for Responsible Travel is formed. Since that time, ecotourism has become a $263 billion industry, with a 65% growth rate from 2009 to 2013.

IOI’s passion is to empower isolated communities to grow in a sustainable way through educational travel. Therefor, they take the concept of Ecotourism one step further. Creating stewardship for the environment, they engage with their host communities through educational and social development projects.

Going on an educational adventure with IOI will guarantee you an unforgettable, immersive experience through homestay accommodations and service learning projects and civic engagement. Throughout, the academic component supplements the experience with background in culture, environmental and social aspects of the local community.

By Kevin Bulger, Intern and Guest Blogger

Sierra Negra

Sierra Negra is the most recently active volcano on Isabella Island, making it a great place to finish up our last day of fieldwork for our geology class. The volcano doesn’t have any active flow sites right now, but it does have a very active sulfur mine, an area which is constantly spewing out mass quantities of yellowish gas that smells just like you’d expect it to... day old egg salad that has been sitting out in the sun for too long.  I can’t say the prospect of hiking three hours into the rim of a volcano to camp over night with 17 people all with varying degrees of hiking and camping skills, while the constant threat of rain persisted made me jump out of my seat with anticipation. But some times expectations can be wrong, and sometimes they can be so far blown out of the water that you feel ashamed for expecting less of the amazing experience you just had, that’s exactly what happened to me.
The hike up Sierra Negra was un-eventful and bleak, garua, a thick fog common here on the island, persisted as we walked slowly uphill to the rim where we would camp, it was only at the very end of the hike that we popped out of the mist and a whole new land scape materialized into our view. To the left the clouds were hanging low and Cerro Azul, another volcano on island, was peaking out at us with the ocean along side it, and to the right the caldera of Sierra Negra with it’s sinuous ridge, a large knife ridge on the left side of the caldera caused by an interesting geological occurrence of the ground shifting in two different ways, shot up from the ground. The view was stunning to say the least, and were would get the chance to watch as the sunset on all this glorious landscape.
I thought that there was no way that the view could get better that night, especially as the sunset turned from bright oranges and reds to smoky purples and blues with Jupiter shinning out as the last rays of light left the land, but once again my expectations were wrong. The night ski came out to play and I remembered again what it was like to camp out where there was no light pollution to obscure the lights of the stars and the Milky Way. Some times there are no words to really describe what one felt and saw in those special moments in life when wonders occur, that night was one of them, the best I can do is leave you with a photo of that moment and hope you feel some of the magic we all did that night.  

IOI’s Evolution in Galapagos - Johann Besserer's Story

Profile of the Director

Johann Besserer, founder and executive director of IOI refers to himself as a, “marine science groupie.”

This so called groupie-ness, coupled with a deep, fundamental desire to help people and the environment, was the basis for IOI, an organization dedicated to creating environmental stewardship in communities that support some of the most ecologically diverse marine habitats on Earth.

It all began in April 2005 when Besserer, then a Marine Affairs and Policy graduate student at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, traveled to Belize for an anthropology spring break course with Dr. Sarah Meltzoff.

“It [the trip] changed my perception of what was this world, and what I wanted to do with my life,” he said in a podcast interview with Tangentially Speaking host, Dr. Christopher Ryan. “People were so seemingly poor, they had so little […] but I’d never seen happier people, they were just living, and I felt like I hadn’t been somehow.”

It was an ‘ah-ha’ moment in the purest sense.

Eager to deepen this understanding, Besserer immediately signed up for Dr. Meltzoff’s next trip to Latin America, which happened to be to the Galapagos Islands. It was Besserer’s time there, in the small village town of Puerto Villamil on the island of Isabela, that set IOI in motion. At this time, sea cucumber fisheries were a high value fishery on Isabela, and there were few opportunities for work outside of this ecologically harmful industry. These people need alternatives, Besserer thought – for conservation’s and social stability’s sake.

Upon returning to Miami, this idea became the topic for his graduate thesis, titled: “Establishing a Non-Profit organization to Benefit Education and Conservation in the Galapagos Islands.” The premise (including an annex that read much like a business plan) centered around the notion that introducing tourism, and educating local populations about sustainability and conservation, could have long-lasting, positive effects on their communities and ecosystems.

Pretty soon, Besserer was back in Ecuador writing his thesis, and what began as a three month research trip quickly turned into six. He began working with an Ecuadorian University that wanted to establish the “biggest and best oceanographic institute in the tropical eastern pacific,” calling it, the Isabela Oceanographic Institute. Besserer, who had been an international business administration major in his home country of Germany, established and ran their corporate social responsibility program.

After 15 months (working from their base in San Cristobal) it was clear that Besserer and the University had extremely different objectives for the project and that it was time for him to move on. The next few months were a whirlwind. In the same weekend that Besserer said goodbye to the work he had been doing for nearly a year and a half, a colleague, understanding Besserer’s vision for sustainable education focused social development and conservation, suggested that he speak to the local priest in Puerto Villamil. This meeting, coupled with the support of a few coincidentally visiting professors of another Ecuadorian University, opened doors to a new partner, and new facilities.

As it turned out, Angel Calderon, the local priest, needed help renovating the abandoned mission in the center of town. Besserer stayed for the next year, fundraising, recruiting the support of family and friends, and—even though the organization didn’t officially take on its current name until April 2013—establishing the Intercultural Outreach Initiative.

After renovating the abandoned mission in 2007, and keeping the entire organization alive with odd jobs ranging from trucking across the United States to being a chauffeur during the Miami Superbowl in 2007, Besserer realized that he needed a more sustainable source of income.

He recalled how he ended up in the Galapagos in the first place, and in the holiday intersession of 2007-2008, IOI opened its doors to study abroad groups. Study abroad is now IOI’s largest and most important source of income.

“The feedback we often get [from study abroad participants],” he said in the Tangentially Speaking interview, “what sticks afterward, is the cultural impact […] the horizon broadening part.”

The very things that led Besserer down the path to founding IOI, are also the aspects of the program that its primary supporters now appreciate the most. Education, experience, and most importantly, the invitation to change your perceptions.

Besserer was born and raised in Germany, and the last thing he imagined as an undergraduate business major was that he would come to the United States and start a nonprofit in Latin America. Alas, here we are.

In 2012, Besserer handed over operational responsibility to a local director, and through an organization-wide restructuring, defined IOI’s areas of intervention more clearly, and developed standard procedures for its processes ranging from salary standardization to support project application formats.

Today, Besserer is based in Miami where he is pursuing his PhD at the University of Miami, and overseeing IOI’s more strategic, legal, fiscal, and developmental tasks. That professor, Dr. Meltzoff, who originally took him to the Galapagos, sat on the board of IOI for 10 years, and like many others, continues to support the organization as it grows and develops.

It is clear that for IOI, and its founder, this is just the beginning.