Need Help for EcoVitality Programs

From: Howard Latin (hlatin@flashcom.net)
Date: Mon Jan 24 2000 - 13:12:08 CST

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    Message-ID:  <200001241938.OAA15492@listserv.american.edu>
Date:         Mon, 24 Jan 2000 14:12:08 -0500
From: Howard Latin <mailto:hlatin@flashcom.net>
Subject:      Need Help for EcoVitality Programs
To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU

    <pre> Dear Environmental Colleagues:

    I'd like to ask for your help in support of a worthy environmental cause. I apologize for any cross-postings.

    I've taught Environmental Professor for more than 20 years at Rutgers University Law School and am one of the best known American scholars in that field. After spending more than a decade, including two Fulbright Scholar years abroad, researching why conservation programs have been failing in developing states (see http://ecovitality.org/failure.htm), I decided to try to demonstrate that there is a BETTER WAY to promote long-term conservation.

    Two years ago I set up "EcoVitality," a non-profit, tax- exempt NGO, to protect ecosystems and wildlife in rural areas of poor countries. Since then I've been working almost full-time on this volunteer organization, and now we have reached the point where we need some help from people who think our economic incentives approach is promising, or who just want to assist a fledgling NGO to show what it can do.

    The central idea underlying EcoVitality is that long-term conservation in poor nations will seldom succeed unless we show enough people there that protecting the environment will be more beneficial to THEM than exploiting natural resources in a nonsustainable manner. In other words, we have to find ways to convince people in developing states that the environment is worth more to THEM alive than dead. To attain this goal, we've adopted an unusually comprehensive form of integrated conservation and development (ICAD) program. The details of this approach are described on our web site at:

          http://ecovitality.org

    At a very high level of generality:

        We are creating new businesses in each area where we want
        to establish effective conservation programs;

        We will be marketing the goods or services from these new
        businesses in the U.S., Australia, and other developed states
        where producers can usually command higher prices and there
        are many more "environmentalist" consumers;

        We will be involved in every phase of these businesses including
        product design, community organization and education,
        exporting, importing, distribution, and marketing. It's unrealistic
        to expect rural villagers to compete effectively in international
        or national markets without this kind of on-going, comprehensive
        support, while the economic returns from competition in local
        markets are normally too low to support ecologically sustainable
        enterprises;

        We will be using our profits from these new businesses to
        improve the economic and social welfare of local people whose
        support is essential for conservation projects, and to create more
        motivated economic and political constituencies for environmental
        protection in developing states. Obviously, we will be linking new
        economic opportunities directly to stronger conservation commitments
       and actual environmental progress.

    Some of our current projects involve:

        Importing marine aquarium fish from the Philippines:
          http://ecovitality.org/cyanide.htm
          http://ecovitality.org/goodfish/

        Importing hardwood wine racks from Papua New Guinea:
          http://ecovitality.org/pngwood.htm

        Exporting rainforest timber ONLY from sustainable ecoforestry
        operations in Papua New Guinea to Australia, where we have
        formed a partnership with an environmentally-minded furniture
        maker and timber seller:
          http://ecovitality.org/timber.htm
          http://www.ecofurn.com.au

    The two projects on which we really need your help are our attempts to use ecotourism to finance ICAD programs in Papua New Guinea and the western Himalayas/northern Pakistan. We've put a lot of time and effort into creating deluxe trekking tours and related conservation agreements in those places. The revenues from these tours will fund construction of the first secondary school within 80 KM of Nanga Parbat (the world's 9th highest mountain), building irrigation channels to take some of the grazing pressure off mountain meadows in Pakistan, setting up fruit drying and Okari nut processing operations in PNG, and similar small-scale enterprises. To a very large extent, the villagers in the two areas have chosen these development projects themselves by putting a high priority on them. In return for these benefits, we've gotten commitments from 8 villages around Nanga Parbat and all villages on the Managalas Plateau in PNG to prohibit industrial logging, protect native wildlife, and allow us to monitor ecological conditions and harmful activities. Let me assure you that these conservation agreements are among the best, perhaps THE BEST, any NGO has negotiated in the two countries.

    We've targeted our tours at affluent, physically fit "adventure travel" clients willing to visit remote areas few other tourists have seen or even heard about. We're pricing the two-weeks-and-a-weekend tours at $6000 + airfare, with half of the price deductible from U.S. income taxes as a charitable contribution to EcoVitality. I know this price is higher than for the great majority of "adventure" tours, but we're offering as many premium tour features as we can, we've hired really outstanding tour leaders (expensive), and we'll be taking people to incredible places that are "exclusively" ours to visit
    (for this season, at least). And for Americans, half of the price will be tax-deductible. If non-Americans choose to take our tours, we'll reduce our prices by 25% to attain greater parity for those who cannot benefit from U.S. tax deductions.

    We've arranged to run 4 tours on the Managalas Plateau in PNG, from June through August, and 5 tours around Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, from June through September. Many more details on these tours are available on our web site, which also presents dozens of photos on each of the trekking tour destinations.

         http://ecovitality.org/pngtour.htm (full details)
         http://ecovitality.org/pngflyr1.htm (1-page handout)
         http://ecovitality.org/pngsched.htm (basic facts)

         http://ecovitality.org/himalaya.htm (details)
         http://ecovitality.org/himflyr1.htm (handout)
         http://ecovitality.org/himsched.htm (basic facts)

    The greatest weakness of our ecotourism programs is that we are an environmental group, not a professional tour company, and we don't have repeat customers, mailing lists of potential clients, or expertise in effective marketing of adventure-oriented tours. The two ecotourism projects will collapse if we cannot attract enough clients to cover the costs of the tours plus making at least some profit that can be used to fund the local projects.

    I'm consequently asking (imploring, beseeching, begging?) you to try to help us find clients for these tours. If you would like to enjoy a remarkable vacation while also doing good works, that's what we're offering. If you have friends who enjoy adventure travel and are reasonably fit, please ask them to look at our web site info. If you're affiliated with organizations or companies that may have members who'd be interested, this is another possible avenue for finding clients. I'm hoping some of these organizations may be willing to notify their members or employees about our tours and conservation programs as a form of public service.

    I hope you'll emphasize to anyone you think might be interested that EcoVitality is a non-profit environmental group, not a for- profit tour business, and our revenues will be used to promote conservation and development in the areas where the tours will be conducted. Given our limited contacts in the tourism field, we believe that appealing to environmentalists is the best approach we can take for publicizing out conservation efforts and for seeking potential tour clients.

    Let me thank you in advance for your consideration of this earnest request. Only a few phone calls on your part could make a major difference in our prospects for success. And it would really be a shame if desirable conservation agreements ALREADY negotiated are lost because of our limited marketing capacities. If we can find enough clients to keep our ICAD projects afloat this year, we should be much better prepared and have much more time to run successful ecotourism programs in the future.

    Sincerely---Howard Latin

    </pre>

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