Animal interaction tourism in Amazonas has potential to be explored

By Ana Celia Ossame, special for Portal do Holanda

Mammal interaction tourism in the Amazon represents an important potential for the region, if done with criteria that take into account related socioeconomic and environmental issues, it can result in a more sustainable tourist practice, where species conservation goes hand in hand with generating income and raising awareness among visitors. In this sense, planning, monitoring and properly managing the activity becomes imperative.

The statement comes from researchers Marcelo Derzi Vidal, Fernanda Pozzan Paim and Simone Batista Mamede, authors of the chapter entitled ‘Showing and saving: the challenges and opportunities of mammal-based tourism in Brazilian Amazonia’. based on mammals in the Brazilian Amazon, in free translation).

The chapter makes up the book ‘Amazonian Mammals: Current Knowledge and Conservation Priorities’, organized by researchers from the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), at the University of California, and Rhodes College, the latter located in the United States.

Although the Amazon is the Brazilian biome with the greatest wealth of mammals, with approximately 57% of the species living in the country, tourism aimed at interactions with the Amazon mammal fauna is focused on a few species and orders, and is developed in a number reduced number of states that make up the Brazilian Amazon, the authors highlight.

After a broad search and literature review, the authors provide an overview of the activity and present approaches to be adopted to manage possible existing negative impacts.

The researchers highlight the growth of tourist interactions with fauna, which has favored the promotion of tourist packages aimed exclusively at the activity, such as safaris to observe the “big five” animals (lion, buffalo, elephant, rhino and leopard) in protected areas in Africa and diving to feed sharks and rays in the Caribbean seas.

Brazil, which has in its territory one of the greatest biological riches on the planet, estimated at approximately 13% of the known biota, has a diversified potential, especially when it comes to the Amazon, which has the largest block of contiguous tropical forests and the largest basin hydrography of the world.

Pointing out that nature, cultural richness and diversity of habitats and species make the Amazon one of the most sought after Brazilian destinations by visitors from different origins, wildlife tourism is underdeveloped.

“In some places in the region there is the possibility of observing birds, cetaceans, fish, crocodilians, snakes, felines and primates, among other groups”, quote the authors of the chapter, explaining that, properly planned and carried out, this activity would yield benefits not only social and economic, but also environmental. The diversity and potential of the Amazon region for wildlife tourism is also an interesting path for raising awareness and environmental education for the different actors involved, which contributes to the recovery and conservation of species.