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.
For more information on the U.S. World
Heritage Fellows program, go to
www.nps.gov/oia/new/New_Page/ WH_Fellowship.htm
or contact Stephen Morris, NPS Chief of
International Affairs, at
e-mail us, or Jonathan Putnam at
e-mail us. To learn more about
World Heritage Sites, go to
http://whc.unesco.org/en/ about/. For more on
Machu Picchu, see
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/ 274/.
www.nps.gov
About Tourism Cares
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.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
