Aplicação do Índice de Capacidade de Carga Turística em áreas protegidas: revisão bibliográfica e guia metodológico

Abstract

Ecotourism is a tourism segment where visitors can contemplate nature and obtain information that sensitizes them to conservation-related topics. The choice to visit natural areas in the context of tourism is motivated by the pursuit of improved physical and psychological well-being promoted by cultural ecosystem services and proves to be a growing market. However, once the activity carried out without planning and management negative impacts can be generated, having as one of the causes the overcrowding of natural areas that results in loss of biodiversity and damage to ecological processes. One of the ways to measure the amount of visitors that an area can receive without compromising its quality is the study of the tourist load capacity, where physical, ecological aspects, management capacity and visitor experience are considered. To reach the result of the amount of visitors allowed in a site a method is used that will considerate the local characteristics. Although there is a diversity of methodologies available, there was a shortage of scientific work that compiled the most recurrent and performed analysis of how they use them in practice. In addition, it was also possible to observe the scarcity of studies focused on the ecological dimension of the tourist load capacity. In order to fill this gap, the present study aims to analyze the methods of tourist load capacity available in the scientific literature. For this, the first chapter proposes to perform a literature review, seeking to answer the guiding questions: what are the existing methods in the literature? What are the most common methods used to address load capacity? What is the relationship between the method and ecological processes? What are the practical implications of using these methodologies? Is the method related to occur in a particular ecosystem? The second chapter presents a methodological guide for the application of tourist load capacity using the method proposed by Miguel Cifuentes, and aims to be a tool that simply and completely guides the managers of Conservation Units to perform this type of study.