Paper short abstract:

Puerto Viejo is a puri-urban, eco-tourism-centered, and expatriates-dominated coastal community where people live closely with mantled howler monkeys. This paper will report a sense of place linked to local human-wildlife relationships learned in a participatory design-build project.

Paper long abstract:

In 2017 I conducted a participatory design project that revealed that local people generally see monkeys and other animals as part of their "paradisal" living environment. This idea guided the course of the participatory design and drove the local people to take ownership of the participatory design workshops and expanded it into an environmental meeting. For many residents, just as people needing a safe pedestrian environment, monkeys need a safe way to cross the highway and powerlines. Now the two needs were hindered by the same urbanization problems and inflowing tourists. According to observations and interviews, the diverging interests are marching around Puerto Viejo residents' desire for a peaceful life in paradise and national tourists' need to enjoy a holiday cookout on the beach. My informants often mentioned monkeys along with other animals and enjoy seeing them around their properties. They pride Puerto Viejo's abundant wildlife presence as uniquely "Walaba," which translates to the old harbor and Spanish-Puerto Viejo. Monkeys and other animals and larger ecological environments were regarded as an integral part of Puerto Viejo. Though the expatriates and the earlier residents describe the sense of place from a different perspective, they all trace back to the "green," "intimate," and "free" identity of Puerto Viejo. So the human-wildlife relationship in Puerto Viejo forms a sense of place similar to that voiced by the local social media channel-"Keep Puerto Viejo Green and Weird."