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It is common for VCPs to have relationships with international entities especially since the majority of participants and project founders are foreigners. As a result, VCP programs are both

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influenced by and designed to meet the desires and expectations of their international client or donor base. According to one interviewee, “international connections are huge” because,

In terms of impact… the groups that are connected internationally – massively bigger, because they have friends that can get them more resources to build capital like… an organization that was here that didn’t have those connections, it would have taken them 10 years to do that. Maybe.

The same interviewee also explained how Western VCP founders or leaders may influence the success of the project:

Westerners being involved… it’s true - for Western people to have a really good

experience, you have to understand their culture. And there are plenty of Peruvians here that do, but often they need the insight from people who are Western. So, it’s either Westerners working in the project, or advising the project, and this is true for any country in the world - if French people want to start something in the US, they better talk to some Americans. So, it’s working with foreigners if your market is foreign, which with

voluntourism – it is foreign.

Similarly,

The international element… [is] key… There’s many a project that have started in this region with grand dreams of Western tourism that are no longer around, because they didn’t have the pipeline, they didn’t know how to build the pipeline, and when tourists did come, they didn’t have the experience they were expecting.

At the same time, when partnering with international entities, “there can be differences in opinion as to how you get to the final goal.” However, it’s worth mentioning that there will be differences in opinion no matter whether people are from the same country or not. Many VCPs do have an international ‘pipeline’ established in one way or another. Several have a ‘sister organization’ (NGO) based in a foreign country, which supports the project by collecting funds and funneling them to the VCP in Peru. The sister NGO may do this through fundraising events, grant applications, and/or other mechanisms. When asked what has allowed some VCPs to successfully contribute to the conservation priorities of the region, one interviewee replied,

Contacts with outside organizations. That have given them money; financed the projects that they have. It hasn’t been little funding, it’s been quite a lot of funding. From outside, and so they have money for logistics, for all of administration, for the infrastructure….

they are equipped, too, so this allows for it to function. It’s like this that they’ve gotten concessions, it’s like this that they’ve worked to implement some community projects.

So, basically contacts and funding.

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In other cases, a VCP is connected with an international ‘sending agency’, or, a foreign organization that markets to and communicates with participants to funnel them to VCPs (and other voluntourism projects). One interviewee also touches on the importance of international connections by stating that,

This is an advantage for foreigners because they come, they put their project there, but they already have an outside link, like those from [Project Name] that already have universities and important people. We are the opposite – starting from here is a bit more difficult.

It’s also important to note that the specialists or scientists/researchers conducting research at VCP sites are – not always - but often foreigners, too. In some cases, these researchers may have previous and sometimes great experience working in the region, but in other instances they may be visiting international university students conducting thesis or internship driven research.

This type of researcher would be classified also as a project participant. One VCP leader explains that,

We have some researchers who lead the research and the learning experience for the volunteers. And then we have other researchers who just come in and they just want to use the site and the kind of the expertise and the logistics, and they take their own

research project and basically use that for their thesis… or we have some researchers that are coming to do very specific stuff [as] part of their bigger climate change project…

which is like over ten years’ time, or we have a herpetologist who comes every year and is looking for new species as part of his like ongoing career to find these species.

In many cases, a VCP may work or partner with at least one foreign university. One project works with “The universities of Spain, the universities of France” and another works with a Scientific Director based in a UK University, who “advises the research coordinating” and

“[provides] some sort of direction, overarching leadership, for… both research and… community work.”

Besides sister organizations and sending agencies, there are other types of international connections mentioned by interviewees. In a few instances, a VCP may be closely related to an international conservation organization. For example, the Frankfurt Zoological Society has worked with more than one of the VCPs in this study to support or improve their project capacities. It’s likely that there are other international connections had by VCPs that are

managed by the ‘sister organization’ or administrative employees, and therefore, not mentioned by interviewees who were working on the ground. For example, one interviewee mentioned

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funding that their VCP has received from the European Union, and it’s unlikely that this is the only case of foreign government or institution support to VCPs in Madre de Dios. Multiple VCPs have also hosted international filmmakers at their project site. Finally, some projects are

connected to foreign companies which assist with, for example, financial investments, marketing, provision of technologies, or providing avenues through which products (cacao-based, textiles, etc.) produced by the VCP or communities with which they partner can be sold.