My name is Andrea Casiano. I was born and raised in the beautiful southern strip of Texas, just an hour away from the Gulf of Mexico. I am currently a college student studying international business in Austin, Texas.
Since I started school, I have sought out to experience what the city where I live in had to offer. It was not hard to come across parks in the city of Austin, but I was looking for more tourist attraction that centered around the environment. One of the weekends where I went out and discover some of the charm of Austin, I visited Hamilton pool. This amazing and protected area of wilderness about 30-45 min on the outskirts of Austin took my breath away. I grew up seeing palm trees and here there were actually trees. Going in we had to pay a fee and were told that the we could not swim in the pool due to a high percentage of bacteria in the water, which was kind of lame, but we got over it pretty quick. The hike to the pool was very interesting. I was not entirely prepared to make this trip, but as soon as I saw the water fall I knew it was all worth it. I was fascinated with the amount of people who were enjoying the wonderful day outdoors. I forgot that people actually did that now a days, specially when you can stay home and watch Netflix all day. The experience opened my eyes to understanding how this area was persevered, but people could take part in the experience with modern day technology. I thinks something that I failed to understand was that, technology is not the enemy here. We live in a world where we are having to reposition priorities because of technology, we just need to learn how to use it to our advantage and preserve the environment.
I have found that as an international business student, I find my interests to be viewed through a global lens. I find learning about the economy, culture and customs as fascinating as reading something off the New York Best Sellers’ list or watching an Oscar’s winning motion picture. Just last Fall semester I studied abroad in Madrid, Spain. Among the traveling, eating and studying, I learned a lot about the Spanish economy and how it was sustained through recent economic crises. Tourism became a huge part of the economic reconstruction of the country.
During my travel around the Spain, I found myself wondering the price paid (environmentally) to be able to welcome tourists from America and northern Europe looking for the warm beaches of the Mediterranean. Undoubtedly, this capitalist approach left a mark and set a precedent on Europe. Man made beaches in Barcelona during the 1992 Olympic Games, for example, are a clear outcome of industrialization and the lack of environmental awareness for the pure incentive of economic revenue. Tourism has become an industry that countries exploit, but I wonder what would happen if nations all over the world came together to change the effects of business in the environment. At the time I did not understand how there was such a large disconnect in being environmentally conscious and wanting to make money. That is why for me the concepts of sustainability and ecotourism are priceless.
As a Rio Grande Valley native, I have seen first hand effects of the industrialization movement as close as seeing it in my backyard to the waste left behind in the ocean by construction in South Padre Island. In class we read the book, Tropical Nature, by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata. The book tells the environmental friendly journey of a naturalist through the tropical rainforest of Costa Rica. In the book, I learned a lot about species and their co-existence with the ecosystem. What fascinated me the most about this book was the preservation actions put into place by government officials and the caution with which the tourism industry was treated with. As the poster child for Ecotourism, Costa Rica has sought out to be the leader in the industry with 23% of country being national protected land (Ecotourism). They seem to be doing so, their GDP is definitely the highest compared to that of other Latin American countries.
As a member of the ever growing Valley community, I could not help but wonder how “one of the most ecologically complex and biodiverse regions in all of North America” which contain a documented 1,200 plants, 300 butterflies, and approximately 700 vertebrates, of which at least 520 are birds, is being destroyed(FWS) As the 3rd largest industry in the state of Texas, tourism has put an outrageous amount of pressure in the RGV’s ecosystem which scientist like Mitchell Mathis and Daniel Matisoff, believe to be extremely fragile (Mathis, Matisoff). With tourism growing as a profitable industry, other areas like infrastructure are being developed and water sources are being jeopardized. The Rio Grande river, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. This costal region of the Rio Grande Valley is also the one with the largest biodiversity index of the area, is being heavily polluted. Just last year, the drinking water that the region produces had exceeded the “Maximum Contaminant Level” (MCL) for trihalomethanes (THMs) (byproduct created when chlorine reacts with organic compounds found naturally in the water) (Arevalo).
When I think about what I would like my role in this whole learning experience to be is to help bring awareness to environmental issues affecting the region I grew up in. I would be interested in researching what coastal regions are doing to inform or act upon the threat of rising sea levels due to global warming. I find that beaches are on the top vacation destinations, meaning that this is an industry that in the future be really affected by climate change and the lack of biodiversity. My thinking is to focus on seeing if there is any correlation with weather and climate and the revenue created from tourism. I am thinking I could look at financial reports, hotel and flight information in order to form a hypothesis and conduct some interviews while I am in Costa Rica. I was also thinking of talking to locals and seeing what they think of climate change and the effects it can have on their economy.
Hamilton Pool
Hamilton Pool
Works Cited
Arevalo, Dina. “Water Quality Issue Resurfaces.” Port IsabelSouth Padre Press. N.p., 05 June 2015. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
“EcoDestinations – Costa Rica.” EcoDestinations. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Forsyth, Adrian, and Kenneth Miyata. Tropical Nature. New York: Scribner, 1984. Print.
Mathis, Mitchell, and Daniel Matisoff. A Characterization of Ecotourism in the Texas Lower Rio Grande Valley (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
“Wildlife and Habitat – Lower Rio Grande Valley – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” Wildlife and Habitat – Lower Rio Grande Valley – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.