Tortuguero situated in Costa Rica on a spit of land and acts as an isolated from the other cities of the country because of ocean, rivers and a protected national park. The only thing that legged the village was its inaccessibility by road. Tortugero has the beach which has been the nesting ground for turtles. Tourism, due to this uniqueness, has empowered the economy of the village.
Tour Guide Association (TGA) facilitates each year the number of tourists in the village, and is a group of self organized members. The revenue so far generated by the TGA want to invest to make the access easy from the city to enlarge the number of tourist. Each tourist had to pay about 40 US cents taking a turtle tour and this fee has contributed to generate the revenue of $30K from the past two years.
Members of the community had the right to share their opinion at TGA meetings, the majority of the members had shown the interest to invest in the infrastructure of the village that would ultimately help to launch an increase in tourists, accessibility to health care, higher education, and lower priced goods and services.
An increase in the number of tourists would definitely lead to the prosperity of village businesses as TGA members believed, in addition to this it would amplify the awareness that is necessary to create about the plight of the endangered green sea turtles.
In contrast to this, some of the community members also believed that the inconvenient accessibility to the village was one of the reasons that has protected the turtles and was not in favor to develop the infrastructure.
The questions that this case stimulates that what would be the most ethical decision either to precede the environmental sustainability or to prioritize the access to medical care, higher education and lower prices of goods and services? What would be the consequences of the decision on the community, the turtles and on the ecotourism in Tortuguero in short and long term?
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