Entanglements in multispecies voluntourism: conservation and Utila's affect economy

Abstract

Through a case study of conservation voluntourism this article brings together critical political ecology, multispecies ethnography, and studies of humanitarian tourism to advance a political ecology of multispecies conservation voluntourism. The article presents multispecies conservation voluntourism as a field that produces and is produced by an “affect economy”, or an economy based on the exchange or trade in the relational. Since the mid-1990s, life on Utila, Honduras, a popular discount backpacker scuba destination located along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, has been deeply transformed by the growth of dive tourism, the ecological destruction it has produced, and now the conservation voluntourism industry emerging in its wake. Seventy percent of Utila is comprised of mangroves and associated wetlands, home to several endangered and endemic species. Using examples of whale shark tourism, lionfish hunts, and iguana tracking, this article shows how conservation organizations operate as affect generators, enabling the privilege of engaging in multispecies encounters. Engaging in multispecies conservation voluntourism produces value in the form of cultural capital which is then exchanged for material outcomes by volunteers in the global economy; at the same time, this form of voluntourism obscures local relationships to nature and alters multispecies assemblages from past configurations.     

The economic impact of bean disease resistance research in Honduras

This paper presents evidence of recent adoption rates of disease resistant bean varieties (RVs), the farm‐level benefits of RV adoption, and the ex post rate of return to disease resistant bean research in Honduras. Results from a farm‐level survey in 2001 in the two principal bean‐producing regions of the country show that 41–46% of bean farmers (depending upon the season) have adopted an RV, and that adoption is neutral with respect to farm‐size and market orientation. An expected utility framework was used to estimate the farm‐level benefits of RV adoption, using a combination of experimental trial and farm‐level survey data. Adopters gain the equivalent of 7–16% (depending on the variety) in bean income from the yield loss averted through RV use. The ex post rate of return to disease resistant bean research in Honduras from 1984 to 2010 is 41.2%.     

Does Community Participation Produce Dividends in Social Investment Fund Projects?

Social investment funds (SIFs) aim to strengthen local capacity for design, implementation, and maintenance of social and economic infrastructure projects and to increase community participation in ways that will promote their sustainability and effectiveness. We explore key features of recent SIFs, intended to promote decentralized, participatory decision-making, and management of projects, in SIF-led education projects in Honduras. We investigate empirically whether efforts to implement a participatory approach improve the outcomes of these projects and community members’ perceptions of their effectiveness. The findings identify elements of the participatory methodology which were associated with increased household and community participation and better household opinions of the projects and also show a link between participation and the probability of children’s regular school attendance.     

The Economic Impact of Marena’s Investments on Sustainable Agricultural Systems in Honduras

This study examines the economic impact of sustainable agricultural production systems in Central America. In particular, we investigate the impact of investments promoted by the MARENA Programme in Honduras on the total value of agricultural production (TVAP) of its beneficiaries. Propensity Score Matching techniques along with the Difference‐in‐Differences framework are used to mitigate biases stemming from differences in observed as well as unobserved (time‐invariant) characteristics between beneficiaries and a control group. The econometric estimates suggest that MARENA has had a positive and significant effect on the TVAP of beneficiaries. In addition, the analysis shows that, under alternative scenarios, MARENA yielded higher than expected internal rates of return. The results of this study shed light on the response of small‐scale hillside farmers to economic incentives and lend support to the role of natural resource management projects in Central America as a tool to increase household income while also promoting the conservation of natural resources.     

Multinational corporations,totalitarian regimes and economic nationalism: United Fruit Company in Central America, 1899–1975

The US multinational United Fruit Company has been considered the quintessential representative of American imperialism in Central America. Not only did the company enjoy enormous privileges in that region, but also counted on authoritarian governments in dealing with labour unrest. The literature assumes that United Fruit and the dictators were natural allies due to their opposition to organised unionism. This paper shows that this alliance could only survive as long as the multinational provided the dictators with economic stability for the country. However, when the multinational proved to be incapable of doing that, the dictators allied with the working class to confront the multinational and extract higher rents from it.     

Local financial benefits of rain forests: comparative evidence from Amerindian societies in Bolivia and Honduras

Researchers generally express the local value of tropical rain forests in dollars/ha/year. The approach is problematic because it produces low values to local users, underestimating the importance of the forest expressed as a share of household consumption or earnings. Here we contribute to valuation studies of rain forests by estimating the financial importance of the forest measured in three ways: (1) the contribution of forests to annual household consumption and (2) earnings; and (3) the value of a hectare of rain forest to villagers measured through the biological goods consumed and sold. We collected panel data on consumption and earnings from 81 households in four villages of two Amerindian societies in two nations (Tsimane’, Bolivia; Tawahka, Honduras). Analyses suggest: (1) forests account for a large share of household consumption (median 38.5%; range 14.65–53.11%); (2) forests contribute more to household consumption than to household earnings (median 22.69%; range 16.56–44.81%); (3) the relative contribution of forests to household consumption and earnings falls among villages closer to towns; and (4) the range of values/year of rain forest/ha is US$7.10–9.70 using 1999 dollars or US$18.46–46.56 using purchasing power parity indexes, below previous estimates. Results show much variation in forest values; valuation methods and stakeholder perspectives affect the variation. Given the variation, a useful strategy to promote forest conservation would transfer income to villagers to compensate them for non-local forest values.