Paola Mariani arrived in Cape Verde for the first time in 1997 as a tourist. She was 16 and accompanied by her parents and siblings, with whom she stayed for a week in Sal, in an Italian hotel that existed at the time.



As she says in an interview with Balai, the first contact with the island didn't have a "big impact" on the teenager, since at the time there were no "big developments" and leisure options were scarce. However, when they arrived at Santa Maria beach, Paola and her family were enchanted by the place and, from then on, the island became the Mariani's main tourist destination during their vacations in Cape Verde.



As time went by, Paola grew up and began to spend much of her life in Europe, graduating in Languages, working as a receptionist in a hotel in the Canary Islands, where she met her current partner and where the two got married.



After three years of marriage, they decided to travel to Cape Verde in 2007 with the aim of becoming entrepreneurs.



"At the time, my father was already here working in the real estate sector, which was booming," recalls Paola and explains that both she and her husband started working in one of the hotels in Sal, but that their intention was to take a chance on real estate tourism.



However, with the economic crisis that hit the world in 2008, feeling that their business would be "at risk", the couple decided to invest in plant production as a way of responding to another project that Paola's father had envisioned in 2000 - the construction of a grass golf course.



"Right from the start we decided to be totally independent when it came to landscaping and creating green spaces on the site. We already knew how difficult it was to bring plant species to the archipelago, mainly because of the climate on the island of Sal," she explains. This is how the entrepreneur began to pay attention to the issue of ecology and sustainability.



For years, Paola and her husband carried out "intense and tireless" research and field studies to understand Cape Verde's soil and climate, without either of them having a degree in botany or a similar field.



In the end, they managed to turn the place into an "authentic nursery", which people and children's organizations began to visit and take children to "connect with nature". The Pachamama ecological park was born, which means "Mother Earth" in Quechua, one of the languages spoken in Argentina, her husband's homeland.



"What we see in Pachamama today is all the fruit of a 'djunta mon' work with the people here. When you're in a land that has almost nothing, you have to invent everything, and that's what's happened here, we've built everything with the resources here, from growing the plants, treating the sewage water from the hotels to irrigate the green areas, to recycling waste to recreate something useful in the nursery," she says.



With the focus still on realizing the initial project, the nine-hole golf course was inaugurated in January 2021.



According to the interviewee, her father, being a golfer, thought of creating the space as a way of providing more entertainment for tourists visiting the island and which, in her daughter's view, "today also plays the role of bringing Cape Verde's name to the attention of golfers from all over the world and bridging the gap with other initiatives in the country related to this practice".



The park's routine, which until then consisted only of plants, began to take on a new dynamic with the arrival of animals in 2013, due to the couple's adoption of a donkey that was found in a local dump.



"At that time I was only working with the local population, but I hadn't yet come up with any ideas on how to attract tourists to visit the garden. That's when I noticed that my nephews, when they visited the space, began to take a liking to the donkey and I saw that the presence of animals could also be an attraction."



According to the owner, today Pachamama has more than 250 animals, including goats, monkeys, parrots, rabbits and other species which, like the plants, are local and she explains that "they weren't bought, some were offered and others rescued".



Also in an interview, Paola says that the park is now one of the stops for groups of tourists who decide to take a tour of the island. In addition to tourists, the entrepreneur says that "the space is open to anyone who wants to spend a relaxing moment with family and friends or just rest their mind".



"Everything that people want to consume in the park is produced with products from the land, grown by us," she says of the catering services offered in the park, which currently employs 14 people, including plant and animal caretakers and other logistical jobs, the majority of whom are Cape Verdean.



As a foreigner who chose to live and invest in a business "from scratch" on the island of Sal, Paola highlights the challenges of adapting to a "new and virgin" market, since she "couldn't find any business models to follow". She also regrets the lack of access to certain resources and assistance on the island, which despite being a tourist destination "doesn't have much in the way of products and services".



In addition to her two businesses, another aspect of her life that Paola Mariani highlights is her "passion for life and for people", to the extent that she considers herself "a citizen of the world" and says she defends the causes she believes in regardless of where she is, stressing that "when you pass through a place, you should leave a positive mark".



In August of this year, Paola attended the second edition of TEDx Mindelo as one of the speakers. As an eco-entrepreneur on the island of Sal, she spoke about environmental balance, human connection with nature and personal development. She also expressed her delight at the presence of the Cape Verdean diaspora at the event.



This article was originally published on the  Balai Cabo Verde  platform  - Balai .