The director of the Chair for New Green Transition has spent a few days in Nicaragua to finalise the implementation of the cooperation project funded by the Universitat de València through the Office of the Vice-Principal for Sustainability, Cooperation and Healthy Lifestyle.

Under the title 'Improving the Quality of Life through Sustainable Tourism Development in the Urbaite-Las Pilas Community (Ometepe-Nicaragua) within the framework of the Green Transition', this project aims to help the rural agro-tourism cooperative Biometepe R.L. to design a tourism product around its main activity: the conservation of a bird (the yellow-naped parrot) that is in danger of extinction.

This parrot, also known as the yellow-naped amazon, is a species of bird of the psittacine family which, in Nicaragua, is mainly concentrated in a very specific area of the island of Ometepe (known as the Peña Inculta) and is being studied to find out about its habits, migrations within the island and the causes of the reduction in its population.

For two days, Professor Lisseth Castro of UNAN-Managua (who participated in the design of the project) and Aurora Pedro, director of the Chair for New Green Transition and coordinator of the Ometepe-Nicargua project, gave a course in Ometepe, in the town of Altagracia. "I have seen the problem first hand and have helped to focus some proposals so that the indigenous community of Urbaite-Las Pilas has the tools to be able to set up tourism initiatives that help to generate employment and conserve this species", said Professor Aurora Pedro.

Also participating in the Ometepe-Nicargua project are Elena Mut, member of the Chair Committee and lecturer in the Department of Social Work and Social Services at the Universitat de València, who will focus her participation on the theme of gender and tourism; and the environmental education expert Ignacio García Ferrandis, lecturer in the Department of Experimental and Social Sciences Education at the Universitat de València.