October 6, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: John Battenburg
Director of International Education and Programs
(805) 756-2945
jbattenb@calpoly.edu
Cal Poly Students, Faculty to Travel to Honduras
To Design Buffer for Mayan Ruins
SAN LUIS OBISPO – Faculty and students from Cal Poly’s Landscape Architecture and City and Regional Planning departments have been asked to help design a buffer zone next to an important archaeological site in Copan, Honduras.
The Cal Poly team will travel to the Central American country this month to work with their counterparts at the Centro de Diseno, Arquiectura y Construccion (Center of Design, Architecture and Construction) of Tegucigalpa to plan a 25-square-kilometer buffer zone around the Copan Archaeological Park.
UNESCO designated the park in Copan as a World Heritage of Humanity site to protect the ancient Mayan ruins at the city’s core. The Honduras Institute for Tourism asked Cal Poly to help create the plan to regulate development and preserve the sensitive cultural and natural resources around the ruins.
The tourism institute specified that planning for the buffer zone should consider landowners’ development rights, as well as protection of the unique characteristics of the ancient site. The project will offer alternatives to a totally exclusive preserve and create guidelines for land use and resource protection that are acceptable to landowners.
On the field trip to Copan, Cal Poly faculty and staff will work directly with the Centro de Diseno, Arquiectura y Construccion; Honduran national and local governments; and community members to develop the plan and guidelines for the buffer zone.
Cal Poly’s International Education and Programs assists students
and faculty in international study, teaching and research activities
in Honduras and other countries around the world. In addition to
Honduras, field trips in 2004-05 have been to
China, France, Italy, Spain and Mexico. Approximately 585 Cal Poly
students participated in study abroad programs last year.
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