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Abstract |
The rural area of Brotas in the southeast of Brazil was national pioneer in the development of intensive adventure tourism, based on enjoying nature. The exploitation of the bounder-areas of the rural properties offered a new income base for the town and improved the working opportunities for the local youth. But there is a setback. There are signs that the fast growing flux of tourists in the town is provoking lesser satisfaction for the visitors and causes damage to the natural environment. This is of great concern for all parties, especially for the local government, as most of the trails and natural attractions lie within Permanent Protected Areas. These areas are often the only pristine settings with potential for recreational use. They are seen as very sensitive areas, protected by the Forest Code of Law, but in reality are managed by private landowners. The Local Government Policy Plan for The Development of Sustainable Tourism (2002), using the input of underlying research project, confronts this dilemma. It was the focus of this research to combine governmental restrictions with new regulations, defined by private landowners, tourism agencies, non-governmental organizations and the municipality. Brotas has introduced measures to maintain or improve the environmental conditions of the rural properties. One of the measures is monitoring the existing conditions in order to control the visitors’ impacts to a maximum. In this research project, we used indicators on the trails and waterfalls of Brotas in order to discover and evaluate if the set of goals for the preservation of vegetation, soil and visitorsatisfaction were reached. The selection of the indicators and the standards for desirable conditions were based on the objectives established by Brotas Municipality Council for Tourism – COMTUR. |
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