Natural world heritage and the production of touristic destinations in Brazil: Iguaçu National Park (PR)

Author(s)

Fernanda Lodi Trevisan

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Geociências
• Defense date: 2018-03-08

Examining board members

Maria Tereza Duarte Paes; Wagner Costa Ribeiro; Silvia Helena Zanirato; Claudia Feierabend Baeta Leal; Lúcia da Costa Ferreira

• Advisor: Maria Tereza Duarte Paes

Abstract

This doctoral thesis investigated the relationship between the protection of nature and its tourist increase in value. Changes in the attitude towards nature ¿ due to the expansion of the technical environment and the technical, scientific and informational environment ¿ contributed to increase value of natural areas in relation to the practice of tourist visitation, as well as resulted in the creation of protective instruments, since 19th century, in the environmental field, but also in the cultural field. Protected areas are understood as territories because they are political and administrative regulated by a public power oficial instrument of public power and with a particular regime of management. At the same time, such areas are used territory because they do not cease having use and specific function for society. In the cultural field (and in the international sphere), the World Heritage Convention is one of the instruments that allows the protection of nature when recognizing a site, a landscape or a natural monument as a world heritage. In the environmental field (and in the national sphere) the creation of Unidades de Conservação (UC) is the instrument par excellence of nature protection. These two protective fields and two institutional spheres converge in the Iguaçu National Park, the spatial cutting of this thesis, created by the Brazilian government, in 1939, and recognized as a world heritage, in 1986. It was assumed that the recommendations of Unesco influenced the territorial organization of the Park and the currently visitation model adopted, responsible for transforming the Park into a tourist mega-company. Iguaçu National Park is the second most visited Park in Brazil and its main attraction are the landscapes formed by Iguaçu River Waterfalls. This Park was the pioneer in having delegated the tourist services to private companies, by means of concessions, in the 1990s. The research results suggest the relevance of Unesco's recommendations, but its restricted influence in the general context of the visitation of the Park. Other elements, such as the national policies focused on UCs and tourism, were predominant for the tourist territorial configuration of the Park and for the currently model of visitation, termed here by commercial visitation, characterized, above all, by the trading of tourist services and intensive control over visitors. Nature tourism is presented as the opportunity to promote sustainable development, since it proposes to harmonise the conservation of the protected area with the development of the local economy and the creation of jobs. The income generation, by nature tourism, is one of the main justifications for the defense of such protected territories. In order to promote nature tourism, priority has been given to the delegation of tourism management to private companies, with the claim that such activities are outside the scope of environmental agency's activities. As research methodology, a bibliographic review was carried out; documentary research in the archives of Unesco, Iphan and ICMBio; and fieldwork for direct observation, photographic registration and semi-structured interviews with ICMBio and companies employees (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 14/12912-7 - World Natural Heritage in the production of tourist destinations in Brazil: a look at the National Park of Iguaçu (PR)
• Grantee: Fernanda Lodi Trevisan
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate