Cuba holds an Eco-Tourism Conference, starting Monday

Image via Wikipedia

With more than 250 participants, the 8th Eco-Tourism Conference, Turnat 2011, begins Monday in Cuba’s central region, which includes also Sancti Spiritus province. The event is to be held in some of the island’s natural riches.

According to Turnat’s official site, the event opens on September 26th, in the Hanabanilla Hotel, in Villa Clara and will close on September 30th. The main products and potentialities of nature tourism in the destination Cuba are to be exposed.

Participants from Canada, USA, France, Italy, Spain and Germany will arrive in Sancti Spiritus the upcoming 28th.

Sancti Spiritus Natural Protected Landscape Topes de Collantes, the World Heritage Site Valle de los Ingenios (Valley of the Sugar Mills), the Caguanes National Park and the Jobo Rosado Protected Area will be venue of TURNAT 2011, also to be present in some other places of central Cuba.

Tour operators, travel agents, journalists and nature researchers are attending the meeting whose program includes round tables, conferences, experts’ rendezvous and visits to observation spots and some other interesting places

Related articles

• Turnat 2011, 8th International Congress of Nature Tourism in Cuba (repeatingislands.com)
• American Congress moves to lift ban on Cuba travel | British Airways – Travel Industry News (travelnews.britishairways.com)
• Cuba does away with emblematic Ministry of Sugar (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Ray Encounter opens at ecotourism park in Mexico

Image via Wikipedia

Mexico’s Xel-Ha Caribbean ecotourism park is using sound to attract rays, leading the creatures to play and interact with tourists.

Visitors can enjoy the “Ray Encounter” this summer at the park, located in the Riviera Maya, taking advantage of the opportunity to interact with the animals, Xel-Ha said.

“This species is found widely in the coves and we have been working with them for eight years so they will respond to sound stimulus and will voluntarily go near the activity site and interact with visitors,” the ecotourism park said.

Visitors can touch the rays and play with them for 30 minutes under the supervision of a group of trainers, who provide information about the animals’ feeding, reproduction, anatomy and habitat.

“At the end of the activity, visitors can kiss them and get a ‘massage’ from the rays,” Xel-Ha said.

The program’s goal is to teach tourists “the difference between enjoying marine species through a glass wall in an aquarium and being able to touch and co-exist with them in their habitat under conditions that are completely free,” the ecotourism park said.

Xel-Ha Aquatic Institute biologists examine the rays living in the area periodically and remove the parasites plaguing them, and they even treat the cataracts commounly found in the animals’ eyes.

The biologists treat any wounds found on the rays, Xel-Ha said.

Xel-Ha is owned by Grupo Xcaret, which operates the Xplor and Xcaret ecotourism parks in the Riviera Maya.

The marine park also provides visitors with the opportunity to swim with manatees and dolphins, scuba dive, go snorkeling, walk on the sea bottom, go to a spa and explore mangroves, sinkholes and underwater caverns, among other activities.

Scientific American Science Lecture Cruise, December, 2008

I’m a reader of Scientific American magazine, and I note that they have, for the past few years, partnered with insight cruises, to have a science cruise, with themed lectures on board.  (As though there aren’t enough things to do onboard a cruise ship, now you have to attend class also?).

The website is here, but the lineup of speakers, which includes NPR’s Ira Flatow, is below:

Ira Flatow
Host, Science Friday

Howard Bluestein, Ph.D.
Lera Boroditsky, Ph.D.
Alan M. Nathan, Ph.D.
Angelica de Oliveira-Costa, Ph.D.
Lisa Schwartz, M.D.
Max Tegmark, Ph.D.
Steven Woloshin, M.D.

Note that the James Randi Educational Foundation also has a similar cruise, to the Galapagos, which, at least to me, is a more interesting location than the Western Caribbean (although I loved loved loved scuba diving in Turks and Caicos).