A skilled migrant & ‘unadvertised community-based ecotourism jobs’

Carlos Teuffer, a young man with a marketing degree from Mexico and an Australian Environmental Management Masters, has recently arrived back in Sydney after three years as an Ecotourism Coordinator with a Non Government Organisation (NGO) committed to the conservation of marine and coastal diversity and sustainable community development in Northwest Mexico.

In 2000-2001 while studying for his masters at Macquarie Uni in Sydney, Carlos met an Australian student, Ilaria – they married recently in Mexico City. Carlos, sponsored by Ilaria, now has a Temporary Working and Residency Visa and has begun the search for work in community-based eco and sustainable tourism planning and management.

Carlos is going through the usual job seeking rituals and attended the inaugural Wine, Food and Tourism Conference in Adelaide last week, where he met many ‘industry’ people. However he is inclined to believe that many jobs in his chosen area are not actually advertised – I have heard this before of the construction industry – employers trust their networks and that age-old form of communication ‘word of mouth’!

As Carlos’ interests and work experience are very much in line with PWF interests and philosophy there may be one of those unadvertised positions somewhere in our network?

Some of Carlos’ achievements with Comunidad y Biodiversidad A.C:

1)Successfully coordinated and managed the process to get the Green Globe 21 International Ecotourism Standard certification (IES) for a community-based ecotourism company in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The company became the first ecotourism operation in the world to achieve the GG21 IES Certification (January 2003 – May 2005).

2)Successfully established and coordinated an ecotourism learning and capacity-building group of key regional leaders of conservation NGOs, academic and government institutions, tourism businessmen, Natural Protected Areas, and grant-making foundations. (April 2004 – April 2005).

3)Successfully completed pre-assessments and first steps for a community-based ecotourism enterprise development in the Gulf of California region. (August 2003 – December 2003).

4)Carried out extensive lobbying, capacity building and strategic planning with key decision-makers to place eco and sustainable tourism concepts in the agendas of segments of the industry, conservation groups and state and local governments. (January 2003 – May 2005).

5)Fundraised USD $101,000 in his first year as the ecotourism coordinator.

6)Founder of the ecotourism area within the organization making Comunidad y Biodiversidad, A.C. the first conservation NGO in the region to include an ecotourism area in its strategic conservation agenda. (January 2003).

7)Assisted in the coordination of the consultation process and strategic planning for the establishment of a Fund for the Conservation of the Gulf of California. (March 2002 – January 2003).

CONTACT Carlos Teuffer Tel. (02) 9879 5909 Mob. 0432 944 867 Email c_teuffer@yahoo.com.au