Interview with John Shores

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John Shores has a long history with Peace Corps including six years as a Volunteer and eight more as Washington DC-based staff.  In his first assignment, he was a technical advisor to Los Nevados National Park in the Central Cordillera of Colombia, and later in the National Parks & Wildlife Division in Bogotá.  In the Dominican Republic he worked as an advisor to the Director of the new National Directorate for Parks.

He joined the Peace Corps because he felt that he had benefited from 16 years of public education and wanted to give something back to the world.

He has consulted on environmental topics in more than 35 countries and has seen the emergence of some positive environmental social enterprise. His motivation is environmental protection, and he feels enterprises don't always achieve that. Attempts to blend business and sustainability for environmental protection and local income generation have grown. But there are often problems, usually the pressure on small entrepreneurs for immediate income. Local entrepreneurs are frequently cash poor and cannot generate early profits. Many cannot afford to take entrepreneurial risks because the consequences of failure are serious ­ -- sometimes the next meal.

Agro-forestry and eco-tourism are two of a growing number of environmental trends in social enterprises.
 
• Agro-forestry ­ -- often successful - is essentially mixing trees with agricultural crops to expand the tree cover, supply timber and non-timber forest products (fuel-wood is often the most important), enhance family nutrition, and increase the income of local people.
• Ecotourism is tricky because tourists demand standards and conditions that the local communities may not be able to provide easily and the missed expectations cause tensions. He recommends that social entrepreneurs in ecotourism explore The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) for best practices.

John also works with sustainable finance tools like national environmental funds, often established through debt-swaps or debt forgiveness, which are small foundations that select and promote the best NPOs in their own countries. He recommends to check the Conservation Finance Alliance for more on these tools.

He reminds social entrepreneurs to remember a saying from ecologists: Everything is connected to everything else. "It helps to be aware of the broader context so that when we solve one problem we don't create other problems elsewhere in the system. Keep the big picture in mind; seek wide advice on the ramifications of development first."

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