Responsible Tourism
The
founder and owner of Mentawai Adventure, Gilles
Bordessoule, is a mountain guide. In 1971, he organized
his first trek and sustianable development program in
the Tessaout, a vallery of the Moroccan High Atlas. For
thirteen years, he organized expeditions and treks in
Niger, Crete, Madeira, the Aeolian Islands and Sri Lanka
with his own local teams and equipment (including mules,
camels and even an elephant).
Several incoming agencies, run by locals trained by him,
are nowadays in operation thanks to his initiatives. Their
goal continues to be to develop responsible tourism, a
powerful means of sustainable development.
In 1985, Gilles lands in the Arctic and settles in Spitsbergen,
where he creates the first company organizing regular
trekking programs in the region, as well as polar cruises
and ski expeditions.
During his first stay in the Mentawai Archipelago, a shaman
of the village of Malagassat recognized him to be the
reincarnation of his own father. Gilles who had already
been initiated to Xuar (jivaros) shamanism in Ecuador
decided to learn more about the Mentawai people and its
complex culture.
With the Mentawai Adventure project, he is implementing
a sustainable growth program that offers the Mentawai
people an economic development that also preserves their
souls. Travelers for their part will have a unique opportunity
to discover a wonderful tropical forest and experience
an authentic meeting with a shamanist culture that is
still fully alive.
The concept of Mentawai Adventure is to bridge,
in a non intrusive way, the gap between an old traditional
culture and the modern world. Mentawai Adventure
is however a commercial self-financed organization and not
a N.G.O. depending on private or institutional donors.
Through his experience in Africa and in South America the
founder of Mentawai Adventure came to realize that
institutional charity programs, although full of good intentions,
very often create more problems – phenomena of acculturation
and sometimes irreversible ecological damages – than
they offer lasting solutions. Our organization offers economic
partnerships with guaranteed short and long term profitability
to the Mentawai clans. These joint ventures offer them a
reliable economic future and strengthen their political,
family, and psychological structures. These actions of microdevelopment
are always planned by request of the clans themselves.
Ecotourism
and benefits to the people living there
Atabai
School Project
Mentawai Adventure plans to finance a school, which teaches
young Mentawaians and sikerei the Indonesian language, arithmetic
and English. Three elements that will allow them to take
part in the development of tourism, have a decent income
and be able to cut fair deals with the merchants of Sumatra.
Forest jobs School
Mentawai Adventure is researching the possibilities
of growing high-income plants that have no negative impact
on the forest ecology. For example, the cultivation and
transformation of aromatic plants used by the perfume industry
is a good combination of sustainable development, protection
of the forest and interesting income.
The Forest jobs School markets these refined products directly
to the European or American purchasing agents; guarantees
prices and quantities bought from the Mentawaians; educates
volunteers in cultivating and refining products; finances
and builds the necessary infrastructures.
Our resort of Siloinak was built and is maintained by the
Mentawaians according to their traditional techniques. Its
construction, using only natural materials taken from the
forest was one of the Forest jobs School’s first actions.
The goal was to allow the Mentawaians to adapt their traditional
techniques to the demands of modern tourism (electric and
water networks, showers, toilets, septic-tanks, energy generators…).
Mentawai
Adventure
ecological principles and practices
In our Siloinak
resort :
Energy
In the Siloinak Island resort, simple solar techniques are
used to generate the necessary energy for lighting, hot
water and refrigeration. Cooling and ice are produced by
dilating ammoniac gases, avoiding thus the use of chlorofluorocarbon
and the need for an electric generator. In the long run,
the only fuel used in Siloinak will be the coconut shell
of which there are numerous trees on the island.
Bathroom
All the soiled bathroom waters will be treated first with
a natural septic tank system, then by an aquatic garden
that only lets perfectly pure water filter back into nature.
This experimental program develops cheap rustic techniques
of water treatment that could bring an answer to the Third
World countries’ water problem in makeshift shantytowns
and rural areas that can’t afford costly sewage systems.
Protection of the wildlife
and the forest
The first action of Mentawai Adventure is a turtle
hatchery that buys turtle eggs from fishermen, breeds the
young turtles for a few weeks in the lagoons before freeing
them into the sea, increasing the chance of survival of
this threatened species.
Mentawai Adventure will also participate in the
preservation of the forest and the coral reefs in the Siberut
Island area.
|
