A Tentative Plan for the Americas

In the last week or so I have started to get together a list of places of interest, as well as beginning to look at a tentative route for traveling the total distance of the trip.  The first leg of the trip will take me up to Canada, over to Alaska, then down to the tip of Argentina, the furtherest point South that can be driven to, and back up to Rio de Janeiro.  In the middle, my scooter will have to be shipped from Panama down to Colombia or Ecuador over the Darien Gap.

Yes, that’s right, I’m planning to scoot to the northern most part of the continental of the Americas, and the scoot down to the southern most part.  Along the way, I plan to see major archeological/historical sites (when possible) and conservation centers, but the major focus of this trip is to meet with scholars in conservation biology, anthropology, as well as politicians and conservation staff to get a better understanding of real-world issues faced in each country.

The trip is likely to start with a month of intensive Spanish language over in Mexico to help revive my active Spanish skills after a decade living almost entirely in the Chinese language.  Once my language skills are back to their former fluency, the plan is to find a volunteer opportunity at a conservation center and spend a few months getting familiar with the workings of these organizations as well as any issues they face.  This will hopefully help form the base of my experiential learning so I can learn the ropes of what is required for the day to day functioning of these projects.

From here, I will head south, making stops in cities based on a pre-determined interview schedule, as well as national parks and conservation/reserve areas and their surrounding towns, with attention to towns where research has shown a history of conflict between wildlife and human populations.  Interviews in these areas will hopefully reveal/clarify these issues.  

The map above shows the terminal destination for North America as Panama City; the reason for this is that it is not possible to safely traverse the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia, so vehicles must be shipped at this point into Colombia or Ecuador before continuing on.  Because I plan to take a scooter down, this means putting myself and my scooter onto a plane for about $400, applying for temporary registration when I land, and then trekking onwards along the final leg around the southern tip of Argentina and then north to Brazil.  My hope is to ship my scooter onwards from Rio de Janeiro once I have completed the Americas, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself just yet.

As things stand, I will likely spend about three weeks in each country, with exception of the two countries where I will volunteer longer-term with local conservation organizations.  It’s not a whole lot of time, to be sure, but I’m hopeful that if I’m able to organize well, I’ll be able to get the major interviews with public figures done as well as a number of interviews with locals, particularly with indigenous groups, about their perspectives on human-wildlife interactions.  If I’m lucky and organized, I’ll be able to fit more time in National Parks enjoying the conservation efforts of these countries with organizations dedicated to their preservation.

I guestimate it will take me around nine months to round up the rest of the money for this trip, which will take around 22 months and cost around $30,000 plus the cost of my scooter and gear.  When possible I plan to camp or couch-surf, and during the times I am planning to volunteer, I will make sure that I find opportunities that provide accommodation.  My hope is that I will not spend the full 30,000 since it is a padded number, rather I anticipate spending around $1000-$1100 for the bulk of the trip, which will leave me closer to 25000 for 22 months.  

When I previously traveled through Central America, I was able to eat almost exclusively local food (mostly just rice and beans with some veggies since I’m a vegetarian) for the 4 months I was there.  Because I really love rice and beans and never once got sick of it, I do not really intend to eat at higher end restaurants or any foreign restaurants while I am traveling except as the rare treat.  However, the budget is padded in case things are more expensive than intended or if there is an emergency that requires cash.

Travel Plans

A Travel Plan

While traveling has always been something that I enjoy, I began to feel like it would be an empty venture if there wasn’t something greater I could contribute.  Over the last month or so, I have really re-defined my goals for my next major trip; I would like to participate in some sort of project.  I want this project to be meaningful and provide some sort of important information that will be beneficial to the world.  I want to make it count. 

My tentative plan is to start building a conservation database of conflicts at the human/nonhuman animal interface (think humans developing land and the difficulty in sharing this space) and trying to explore pertinent culture and conservation related issues for each country.  I will also strive to explore the political and historical context for these issues and examine the ways each country is moving to resolve these conflicts.  This way, I hope to create a more holistic, dynamic picture of these types of issues.

The reasoning behind this topic is that there are many issues that fly under the radar of the international community that deserve consideration, especially for smaller countries that are generally not as well-represented in the media.  Information regarding these types of human/wildlife conflicts generally are even less represented in the media because much of the world’s media seems to cater towards a more sensationalist view.  Therefore, unless the story is particularly moving, it is generally omitted in main stream media outlets.  

Another issue behind information dissemination is language barriers, so the project will seek to make these issues accessible to a larger audience through publication.  Ultimately, the project will hopefully end (funding permitted) with a series of books that will be printed in the major languages of the world:  Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Hindi.  The goal will be to make this survey of human/wildlife clashes available world-wide so that awareness is spread about the nature of these classes as well as how individual countries are trying to resolve these issues.

The ultimate goal is to bring all of this information together in one place so that laypeople, politicians, and scholars can examine these topics from across the world, hopefully helping to improve our relationships with wildlife in ways that are appropriate for the individual region and for the wildlife as a result.  I would like to use a multi-disciplinary approach to this project, utilizing my MA in Anthropology to identify locally important issues, as well as my specialization in Anthrozoology to explore non-human animal behavior and the interactions between these groups.

I am at the beginning of developing this project, so the details are still pretty fuzzy for the moment, but hopefully I’ll be able to get some background research done in the next few months so I can start formulating a plan!  At the moment it seems like it is likely to be a survey of sorts that will provide a general overview of these issues, but will likely not be able to delve into too much detail (time restrictions and funding will likely be the major issues).  Even so, I’m really excited at the prospect of being able to create something that will be beneficial!  I’ll post updates on here as this project takes shape!