El Tigre and Its Relationship with Rios Tropicales

Rios Tropicales, in many ways, is the key force behind "putting El Tigre on the tourism map." El Tigre was a small, very poor, subsistence farming community of up to 25 families, with a small, one-room elementary school. Children had to walk 2 miles to the busstop, and take a bus for an hour, to get to the closest high school in Siquierres. Now, with the South-South Project grant funding, and leadership of Rios Tropicales in the town's exciting sustainable development of various rainforest tourism attractions,

Rios Tropicales was founded in 1985. One of its first rafting trips was on the Pacuare River.  In 1989, Rios purchased their first rainforest property along the banks of the Pacuare River, where they eventually built Rios Tropicales Lodge, a National Geographic award-winning eco-lodge. In 1992, they discovered El Tigre, almost by accident.

After we were able to purchase this beautiful land next to the river where our lodge is built now, an El Tigre resident approaches us saying: “I want you to see this piece of farm I have”. So we came up this road from the Pacuare River, we are going to this beautiful area, and he is telling us how he is selling the rights of the land to this deforestation company so that he can get a road. He is trading deforestation of the forest by a lumber company so he can have a pasture!  We thought, wait a minute, we’ve got to buy this, we got to stop this deforestation.  

So we bought this piece of land overlooking the Pacuare gorge, we reforested it, and now it has about 18 years of protected growth. That is how we got involved with the community of El Tigre.  We started coming to this area by land (driving in from Santa Marta instead of hiking up from the river) and we needed people to take care of the land.  Javier Mora was one of our first employees. Javier is one of our sustainable development managers and one of the beneficiaries from this [South-South] project. He is the owner of the Internet Café and his daughter and his wife run it. His conservation values are continuing on to different people in the township.  - Rafael Gallo, Co-founder and President of Rios Tropicales

My name is Javier Mora, proud neighbor of Bajos del Tigre, I work with Rafael Gallo doing the maintenance and taking care of the tilapias, the environmental issues and also the Internet at my house.  I arrived here when I was s little boy of thirteen, I have 42 years now of living here, I got married and now I have four children.

When I got here as a young boy, the custom of all the townspeople was to deforest in order to make space for farming. Even after that we continued cutting down trees without realizing that this was a serious problem for the environment. When I began to do this work with Rafael Gallo, I realized that this was a big mistake. He was impressing upon us that tree planting was so important. That’s that way I see it now too, and I believe the reforestation project is of utmost importance for the maintenance of the environment. It was a big change for me.

In town when reforesting, like with the property of Rafael Gallo, children from school, their mothers, and other family women have been involved. Little by little they have understood that this is very necessary. There are even some farms that have wanted to reforest, little by little.  Tourism has played an important part, all those who have come here have wanted to plant at least one tree, to be part of the project and contribute to the making a change in the environment. - Javier Mora, Sustainable Development Manager for Rios Tropicales Rainforest Reserve and the El Tigre Tilapia Farm, Owner of Agua Dulce Internet Cafe.