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ISSN 1108-8931 |
INTERNATIONAL ECOTOURISM MONTHLY |
Year 5-Issue 55, Dec. 2003 |
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Travelling around Eastern Europe can be a fruitful and exciting experience, as its vast beauty and unspoiled countryside can inspire even the most hard-hearted traveller. Its contrast to Western Europe also provides westerners with eye-opening experiences, and for many tourists, the chance to see this region is still a rare opportunity. However, "negotiating" Eastern Europe, when travelling alone is not without its difficulties. Dramatic changes have taken place since the fall of communism and all these countries are now embracing Western style capitalism. Despite this, the socialist way of life still prevails in many areas. Nowhere is it more obvious than with the still exotic notion of "customer service": you will experience shopkeepers or sales staff who will pretend that you do not exist. (Of course, ecotravellers should always treat their hosts as equal partners instead of the usual "customer as God" kind of mentality prevalent in the west). The Latin alphabet has yet to find its way into signs and information in Bulgaria for example will usually appear only in the Cyrillic alphabet, making finding your way an interesting exercise - but also an excuse to socialise. With the collapse of communism, many struggle to earn a living. Despite these difficulties, people are generally friendly and hospitable and the rewards for travellers are worth the costs. Eastern Europe can provide a unique experience, surrounded by unspoiled beauty. To travel Eastern Europe the "Eco" way, I try to stick to the following Travel Code: 1. Always go with a smile, a sense of humour and
enthusiasm and a heart to learn. 2. Participate enthusiastically in
cultural activities. Sometimes, accepting a little inconvenience and having a sense of humour helps when you visit a country with a very alien culture to your own. Eco travel in any case is not about travelling in comfort and style. It is more about supporting local economies and cultural understanding and eventually lead to more peace in the world.
In the context of European colonialism, St. Thomas became a major centre of trade or rather piracy as several famous pirates such as Blackbeard made their home there. Later, as the sugar industry grew, the islands became major sugar producers, thanks to the toil of slave labourers from Africa, until slavery was finally abolished in 1848 and sugar production declined. That is where we find Estate Little Princess, now the offices of The Nature Conservancy's Eastern Caribbean Program. Estate Little Princess began as a sugar plantation as early as 1671. In 1735, Denmark purchased the Virgin Islands from France and 8 years later the estate was purchased by the Danish Governor Frederik Moth. In 1764 his son-in-law Peter Heyliger moved on to the property and built the Great House. By that time, the estate contained a sugar cane crushing windmill, a second mill for water storage, and a sugar/rum factory. In the 1830's a hospital building was added along with an overseer's house. A small village occupied by slaves and then labourers, numbering up to 140, also stood on the property. Today, the 25-acre Estate Little Princess exists as a place where the present meets the past. Visitors can view a model sugar/rum plantation from the colonial era. They can also view The Nature Conservancy's model of stewardship. In order to demonstrate an environmentally friendly way to treat wastewater and reduce the damage it causes to the surrounding coral reef systems, a system has been constructed on the estate, which naturally treats the water and reuses it for irrigation. In this system, the water travels through two septic tanks to separate solids from liquids and then passes through a wetland pond where it travels through a series of vegetated shallow and deepwater zones containing water plants, which provides for further absorption and degradation processes. Water takes about 11 days to be thoroughly treated. After this time it is stored in a reservoir tank and then pumped through a filter to a sub-surface drip irrigation field beneath the lawn at the front of the Great House. Solar power is used to provide electricity to the facility. There are 60 photovoltaic panels, which work during the day converting the sun's radiation into electricity which is stored in 24 batteries. The abundance of sunlight and the ability to store three days worth of energy has made the solar power system a wise alternative. The entire office of the Conservancy (located in the hospital wing) as well as the Great House (which is now being renovated to house volunteers and events) are able to run efficiently off of this system. The Conservancy is currently pursing a power interface with the local power company to sell them power when there is an excess. Meters provide visitors to the estate with an opportunity to monitor their power consumption and learn how much grid energy they are saving by using solar power. The Nature Conservancy is also in the second year of a three- year project to revegetate Estate Little Princess with native endemic and rare plant species, 700 trees so far, creating demonstration plots throughout the property to educate residents and visitors on how to revitalise degraded landscapes in former agricultural areas.
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ECOTOURISM
D.I.Y.
About the Author:
Stephen Mak is the Founder of VisionEcotour.com (
The
U.S. Virgin Islands, formerly the Danish West Indies were purchased by
the United States from Denmark in 1917, as part of World War I
strategy. They are in the path of soft tradewinds blowing directly
from Portugal which perhaps accounts for the fact that St. Croix was
among the first islands to be sighted by Columbus on his second voyage
westward in 1493, when he called them Las Virgenes. At that time, the
islands along with many other Caribbean islands were populated by the
Arawaks.