The regions where CEN works offer tremendous natural beauty. The communities are rich with local knowledge and a strong appreciation of their natural and cultural heritage. The residents believe tourism offers an economic opportunity and generates a continuous flow of investment and people, contributing to overall regional development. Practiced carefully, tourism can also help the communities preserve their culture and environment.

Ecotourism (also known as ecological tourism) is a form of tourism that appeals to ecologically and socially conscious individuals. Generally speaking, ecotourism focuses on volunteering, personal growth and learning new ways to live on the planet. It typically involves travel to destinations where flora, fauna and cultural heritage are the primary attractions. Ecotourism is a conceptual experience enriching those who delve into researching and understanding the environment around them. It can lead to insight about human impacts on the environment and to a greater appreciation of all natural habitats. It has the potential to ensure that visitors travel responsibly, help protect wildlife, and contribute to the well being of local communities. At its best, ecotourism can minimize the negative aspects of conventional tourism on the environment and enhance the cultural integrity of local people.

Unfortunately some projects labeled as ecotourism fail to live up to these objectives. The term is sometimes used by tour operators as a marketing tool to promote tourism that is related to nature, but which has little positive impact (and in some cases a very negative impact) on the host communities. Read more about the negative impact of some ecotourism activities by clicking here.

Small scale, slow growth, and local management are key to creating sustainable economic opportunities through ecotourism. Programs founded on these principles provide environmental benefits as well as high-level management positions to community members, reducing poverty and unemployment. Local management tends to be more positive because residents have a vested interest in the well being of their community, and are therefore generally more accountable to environmental protection than multinational corporations. Smaller scale ecotourism operations can be marketed to a different lifestyle than large scale packages, hence the development of facilities and infrastructure does not need to conform to corporate Western tourism standards, and can be much simpler and less expensive to produce.

CEN’s Role

Our primary objectives for supporting communities’ tourism initiatives are to help them become more self-reliant and to build sustainable livelihoods while maintaining their unique culture and preserving the environment. We are also working hard to ensure that the tourism activities the communities decide to pursue are financially, socially and environmentally sustainable. CEN’s strategy to accomplish is:

• Encourage each community to reflect upon their goals and to explore whether and how tourism can help them meet these objectives. For example, the community of Xixuau already has a well-developed ecotourism business and largely supports itself on visits by international film crews and tourists that use the community as a base camp for exploring the pristine surroundings. Another community, Suruacá, on the other hand, is more cautious toward promoting open tourism but is interested in using tourism as a way to facilitate stronger relationships with visitors. We encourage this community-wide dialog by helping residents hold meetings and workshops on the subject, as well as by helping communities with tourism experience, like Xixuau, share their learnings with those considering tourism, like Suruacá. We recently supported just this kind of cross-community dialog by sponsoring the visit of a resident of Xixuau to Suruacá and Maguary.
  
• Mentor to establish locally based tourism businesses. Unlike the eco-tourism initiatives managed remotely by many other organizations, CEN’s efforts aim to involve communities in all aspects of the development of tourism programs with the goal of building self-reliant community tourism ventures.
• Facilitate tourism training and marketing assistance.
• Help the communities and residents develop compatible economic activities such as handicraft production and guiding tours.
• Bring a manageable number of visitors so residents can learn from the experience and increase income, but not overwhelm their way of life. These visitors will also become partners in the process and have the opportunity to participate in real experiences in the special communities they visit.

We have already begun implementing parts of this tourism plan, but portions of the strategy will be delayed until we begin Phase 2 of the cCLEAR program (estimated early 2011).

Activities Related to our Tourism Initiative Planned during 2010:

• Unveiling the Amazon - CEN's guided visits to Jamaraquá and Maguary.  Learn more
  

Additional Resources