COMMUNITY TOURISM

"Community Tourism is a proposal to build small community businesses rather than train employees in large tourist hotels. That is the model that the State should bet, the model that Local Governments should bet and that is the model that the Country and Central America should bet."



  AN AMAZING AND VERY NATURAL REGION

Our community tourism projects are associated with one or more protected areas that make up the LA AMISTAD BIOSPHERE RESERVE. They are the San San Pond Sak Wetland, which occupy the coastal marine area between Punta Soropta and Sixaola, La Amistad International Park and the Palo Seco Protected Forest, which extend through the Cordillera Central, and the National Marine Park Isla Bastimentos, which together with Playa Bluff Municipal Reserve are located in the archipelago of Bocas del Toro.

That association also characterized the activities of the organized groups that are trying to achieve, with full right, to take part of the benefits that tourism, the great and emerging Panamanian economic engine, is leaving in our privileged region.


  Ramsar Wetland San San-Pond Sak

San San Pond Sak, wetland protected under the Ramsar Convention and managed by the Environment Ministry (MIAMBIENTE), is one of the regions of Panama with most biodiversity.

Aquí se pueden encontrar áreas con influencia marina como manglares y playas, y otras alejadas de la costa con ríos, quebradas y pantanos. Entre la riqueza de fauna y flora que se pueden encontrar en el Humedal se pueden destacar dos especies en peligro de extinción: los manatíes y las tortugas marinas.

  Basin of the Teribe River

The Naso Tjer Di indigenous people is located between two large protected areas: La Amistad International Park and the Palo Seco Protected Forest. His government is the only existing monarchy in America and their communities are scattered on the shores of the river Teribe or Tjer Di, and its tributaries.

The boat ride along the said river, admiring the spectacular scenic beauty, is an unforgettable experience. The Naso Tjer Di people has preserved its traditions, including dances, crafts and traditional medicine which has found the remedy for many diseases and ailments.

  Bocas del Toro Archipelago

It is a region where marine ecosystems (coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds and beaches) and terrestrial (rain forests and wetlands) are recognized globally attractive, where diving, surfing, snorkeling, hiking or just sunbathing on a white sand beach, in front of a turquoise sea, is one of the many activities available.

Here, several communities of the Ngobe people, the original inhabitants of these islands have to offer to the amazed visitors their culture, its landscapes, its customs and, above all, his friendship.

  The Ngäbe main land communities

Throughout the province of Bocas del Toro, between the upper basin of the Changuinola River and the road linking Bocas del Toro with Chiriqui, and between the Cordillera Central and the Caribbean Sea, you can find many valleys inhabited by numerous communities of Ngobe indigenous people whose characteristics are to be mainly small-scale farmers, little more than survival.





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