Case study and method

Agua Blanca is a community (292 inhabitants, 9,000 hectares) located within the Machalilla National Park (Ecuador), in the Manabi region, one of the poorest in the country The origin of Agua Blanca is linked to a hacienda founded at the end of the nineteenth century, but the community did not effectively emer ge until the hacienda went bankrupt at the beginning of the 1970s (Ruiz-Ballesteros, 2009), The creation of the national park in 1979 brought about acute social conflict and the threat of eviction, because community subsistence was based on activities that had become illegal due to then^- negative environmental effects - namely, hunting, timber extraction and charcoal production.

In the mid-1980s, an archaeological project to collect artefacts left from the Mantena culture helped promote a process of cultural heritagisation (Hudson, Silva, & McEwan, 2016) that became the basis for commirnity tourismdevelopment. Furthermore, the archaeologists acted as mediators in the conflict between the community and park officials, facilitating an agreement in which the community would gain the light to retain its territory, to develop subsistence agriculture and livestock fanning, as well as CBT. In return, the community pledged to control and eradicate any activities that would have a major negative effect on conservation, such as timber extraction, charcoal production and hunting. Although there are still occasional isolated disagreements, park officials and the community work together as strategic allies, shaping a multi-level adaptive co-management approach based on a conceptualisation of the land as a commons (Ruiz-Ballesteros & Gual, 2012).

Agua Blanca has become a role model for CBT in Ecuador (Ruiz-Ballesteros & Solis, 2007). Its indigenous character (Manteno People) and its status as a community (administrative level) allow it to enjoy autonomy and decision-making capacity on its territory, as recognized by Ecuadorian law. Harnessing the tourist potential of the Machalilla National Park, the conununity has substantially increased its visitor numbers from 9.605 (2006) to 24,251 (2018). The local tourist product involves a guided tour lasting between two and three hours, showcasing the community's natural and archaeological heritage. The residents of Agua Blanca organise this activity through several committees that bring together 35 locals (29 men, 6 women) from 35 of the 66 households that make up the conununity (2018), who are subject to the authority of the communal assembly, hi order to become tourism workers, members of the community must first ask the assembly. They then have to go through a training period and pass a test with experienced members of the committee. There can be no more than one member of the same family working in tourism. There is no typical profile amid tourism workers: they all have very different ages and various roles in their respective households. They work in shifts, taking care of tourists and maintaining infrastructure, including the archaeological remains, footpaths, the museum and a lagoon.

CBT accounts for more than 50% of the tourism workers' household income and is the main source of revenue for the conununity’s council, through taxes. In addition to this collective activity, local tourism fosters revenues based on complementary family-run initiatives, involving crafts, accommodation and restaurants. All of the tourist activities carried out in the community are subject to collective regulation, and their revenues are taxed with a community levy. In addition, some local residents also work as guides outside of the community, employed by tomist agencies that operate in the park. In 2017, revenues from tourism accounted for 47% of the local monetary economy, and more than 70% of the families received some earnings from tourism. The other main pillar of the local economy is agriculture, which ahnost exclusively involves subsistence farming for self-consumption. Approximately 75% of the families work a communally owned vegetable plot and receive collectively managed irrigation water. Livestock (mainly goats) and employment outside of the community also provide alternative sources of income and work hi an economy marked by pluri-employruent. This economic model, wherein tourism is the main activity, has a positive socio-environmental effect: revenues are widely distributed in the community, which contributes to the

Community-based tourism and degrowth 175 reduction in the extraction of natural resources (coal, limiting). In this sense, it could be argued that the sustainability of the socio-ecosystem depends on tourism activity. If tourist activity fails, then it is possible to focus on livestock and vegetable plots as subsistence activities.

From an organisational perspective, two fundamental factors help understand how CBT works in Agua Blanca. First, an ongoing capacity for collective action has ensured that the tourism product itself, the consolidation of relevant infrastructure and the self-organised development of the tourist business have been sustained. Second, as is discussed in greater detail later, this collective action has been marked by an assembly strategy and a rotational logic that pursues equality of opportunities within the local community. In fact, organisational decisions are made by committees, but strategic decisions about tourism are taken by the communal assembly, where all of the households are represented, regardless of whether or not they participate in tourist activity. Their capacity for collective action hinges on a dense social network founded on kinship as well as on the necessity of working together in order to manage the commons and develop tourist activities. Rational interests and community cohesion feed collective action. However, commons and collective management do not eclipse individual interests, which are particularly characteristic of the globalised world and which are also expressed in everyday life in this conununity. Thus, conununity building, an exercise that seeks to integrate collective interests and commitments with individual desires and expectations, is in a state of permanent tension.

An exploratory and longitudinal (2006-2018) ethnographic case study (Poteete, Jansen, & Ostrom, 2010; Yin, 2009) was carried out in Agua Blanca, involving extensive and intensive (11 months) periods of fieldwork. Fieldwork was carried out between 2006-2009 and 2015-2018; the longest stay was two months long and involved only one researcher, except during 2018. Throughout the research, communication and cooperation with the conununity has been fluent, including the devolution of available research materials and information.

Three levels of analysis were developed, focusing on the conununity, the household groups and the patterns of resource extraction. The primary research methods involved participatory observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups and resource surveys.

Participant observation helped the researchers gain an in-depth understanding of everyday life in the conununity and how its main institutions operate. In-depth interviews enabled access to the views of 15 key informants, maintained over time, that help trace the evolution of productive activities and the conununity in general, the swings and shifts in tourism, and personal experiences. Focus groups were used chiefly to reconstruct the community’s recent history and its most salient episodes. Resource surveys were applied to household groups in 2007 and 2018 to determine then^- activities, earnings and strategies, involving a collective interview with at least two of their members. Furthermore, the community’s archives provided a key source of information about demogr aphic and economic processes, as well as enabled us to reconstruct, through the minutes of the assembly meetings, the debates held and collective decisions made.

Analysis of the data obtained was based on triangulation of the different techniques used and an application of theoretical saturation, as derived from grounded theory (Channaz, 2003; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). For each of the research topics, codifications were developed to classify the different types of data obtained. The processes studied were then analysed and described based on these codes. Our conclusions on these processes and topics were subsequently contrasted with key informants. At the end of each period of fieldwork, the results obtained were shared with the conununity in an assembly as a strategy to expand and contrast them.