The deal that saved the whale

The deal that saved the whale, if it continues to work could also save the rest of the environment, including the local people. If the locals can hold on to their villas, they may find that they themselves can make a comfortable living by guiding ecologically friendly tours of the area, instead of selling their land to the outsiders who will then turn around and make a killing by destroying the land. It sounds like some of the local fishermen are already guiding 'eco-tourists' in the winter time, which is great. The same thing is happening in remote stretches of coastline of baja, such as the beautiful and isolated beaches of scorpion bay and Puntas Cobres. We see the same thing happening all over central america, where wealthy investors from the outside come in and take advantage of the poverty and lack of environmental regulations, paying the locals a tiny sum of money to then turn around and make a fortune destroying the indigenous character of these places. A friend of mine was just freed from a fourteen month stay in a deadly Nicaraguan prison after being framed for the murder of his ex-girlfriend. He founded and had been operating a bilingual news magazine based on the smart and eco/ local concious growth of central america, in particular Nicaragua. It has been suggested that people in the Nicaraguan gov't didn't like what he was doing involving conscious development and empowering the local people to make a decent living without having to sell out to developers. So this is a very tough situation indeed, and when gov't officials in these central american counties stand to make some money on the development, it can be quite dangerous for us to get involved. You can check out Eric's situation; www.friendsofericvolz.com