Study Rates Peruvian Tropical Ecotourism As 2nd-Most-Profitable Use Of Tambopata Region - Mongabay

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Ecotourism is one of the most profitable uses of tropical forest in the Tambopata area of the Peruvian Amazon, according to a study released on 29 September in the journal PLoS ONE.

In 2002 Peru’s government passed legislation to allow ecotourism-controlled zones in the Tambopata region of southeastern Peru. Policymakers hoped such zones would preserve spectacular rainforest habitats while bringing in steady money. Critics have wondered, though, whether the strategy can succeed in the face of other profitable―yet destructive―ventures on pristine forested land.

To answer this question, researchers compared the profits generated per hectare of ecotourism-controlled land with the profits from comparable land devoted to farming, ranching, logging, or Brazil nut extraction. Of all the large-scale land-use options considered, ecotourism’s profitability per year was second only to non-sustainable timber harvesting. “Even if you ignore environmental public goods, such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration, ecotourism is still worth doing on narrow economic grounds,” said senior study author Douglas Yu of the University of East Anglia, U.K., in an interview with mongabay.com.

According to Yu, the dozens of ecotourism establishments in the Tambopata region benefit from their proximity to the city of Cusco. From the tourist’s perspective, “you can do an Inca trail, plus the jungle, plus a couple of days in Cusco, maybe see the Nazca Lines, and then take off,” said Yu, noting that such efficient packaging of trips lures visitors to the eco-lodges. umbers seem to back up Yu’s statement. Tourist volumes in the Tambopata area have increased steadily since the mid 1990s. In 2005, the year the researchers collected data on lodge profitability, approximately 39,610 tourists visited the region. By 2008 this number had ballooned to 52,000.

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http://news.mongabay.com/2010/1115-ecotourism_meyers_ucsc.html