Homestead, Florida - Ms. Ada Castillo Ordinola, a senior manager in the Peruvian park service, is completing a World Heritage Fellowship at Everglades National Park, studying sustainable park management. During her six week course of study, Ms. Castillo Ordinola is learning about methods used in the United States by the National Park Service to provide for visitor access and enjoyment while ensuring the preservation of park resources for future generations. Everglades National Park was among the first sites in the United States to be added to the World Heritage List in 1979. The World Heritage Fellowship will enable Ms. Ordinola to transfer lessons learned to similar sites in Peru, including the famous Machu Picchu and other World Heritage sites.
Ms. Castillo Ordinola is the most recent participant in the National Park Service's (NPS) U.S. World Heritage Fellows program. The U.S. World Heritage Fellowships promote conservation of World Heritage Sites around the globe by providing an opportunity for World Heritage site managers from outside the U.S. to temporarily reside in this country and work alongside the managers and staff of U.S. World Heritage Sites. Previous World Heritage Fellows have come from Brazil, Kenya, the Seychelles, South Africa, the Philippines, Zambia, Jordan, Libya and Peru.
Ms. Castillo Ordinola's World Heritage Fellowship is being sponsored by the NPS with significant support from Tourism Cares' Global Outreach program. Tourism Cares, a U.S. based travel and tourism charity dedicated to preserving the travel experience for future generations, is supporting the World Heritage Fellowship Program by covering the travel costs for Ms. Castillo's visit.
"The challenge to preserve Machu Picchu, the remarkable Incan "lost city" rediscovered 120 years ago, is balancing visitation with preservation," said Bruce Beckham, Executive Director of Tourism Cares.. "To that end, Tourism Cares is subsidizing Ms. Castillo's study visit at Everglades National Park learning about U.S methods in sustainability, crowd management, and other ways of preserving a natural site of significance."
It is particularly timely that this year's World Heritage Fellow is from Peru, where Tourism Cares has made a three-year commitment to GO Peru, a collaboration between U.S. travel and tourism companies and similar companies within Peru, which have formed a charitable organization to preserve world heritage sites in the country.
"Tourism Cares' Global Outreach program mirrors what we do in the U.S." Beckham said.
GO Peru included an educational forum held in Cuzco in May and a hands-on volunteer restoration program at the San Pedro marketplace in Cuzco. Beckham said the U.S. charity and the new Peru charity, Turismo Cuida - "Tourism Cares, Peru" - have pledged to raise matching funds to provide grants to preserve and restore cultural and natural sites in Peru in 2013 and 2014.
According to Stephen Morris, Chief of the NPS International Affairs Office, "Ideally, the entire international community plays a role in the protection of every World Heritage Site. This is a way for the National Park Service to help the United States fulfill that responsibility. Through this program, site managers of World Heritage Sites in other parts of the world can learn from the NPS's decades of experience managing natural and cultural sites, and the NPS likewise gains new ideas and perspectives that can be applied to the management of our own parks."
Fellowship applicants are asked to provide information on management issues and topics of importance to their sites as part of the application process. Based on the topics submitted by Ms. Castillo Ordinola, Everglades National Park was selected as the host park for her fellowship.
Tourism Cares, Inc. is a 501c(3) non-profit public charity that benefits society by preserving the travel experience for future generations by awarding grants to natural, cultural and historic sites worldwide; by focusing on workforce development through our student programs which provide support from classroom to career; and by organizing volunteer efforts to restore tourism-related sites in need of care and rejuvenation. For additional information, or to contribute to Tourism Cares, visitwww.tourismcares.org.
Many thanks to our Global Leaders Tauck and Trip Mate which are providing leadership funding for three years and to the following sponsors providing two years of support at the Global Partner level: Amadeus North America, Avanti Destinations, Collette Vacations, Fairmont Specialty, General Tours, Odysseys Unlimited, On Call International, and Ward Insurance Network. And, thanks also to our in-kind Corporate Partners Avis and Hertz, which are helping to provide local transportation for Ada while she is in South Florida.
