Perceptions of tourism and its relationship with environmental conservation in the Upper Solimões River, Amazonas

Abstract

Tourism is a social phenomenon and has proven to be one of the most visible contemporary practices, capable of promoting significant transformations in a place. In the Amazon, in the Upper Solimões River region, in the cities of Tabatinga (Amazonas State, Brazil) and Leticia (Amazonas Department, Colombia), tourism manifests itself through the contemplation of the environmental system. This research aimed to describe the environmental perception of social actors in relation to tourism and its attractions. The paradigmatic theoretical framework adopted was the method of the dialectic of systemic complexity by Edgar Morin (1996) and the Case Study by Robert Yin (2015). Data collection procedures included: bibliographic research, documentary research, and field research, in addition to the use of direct and participant observation techniques, interviews with a pre-established script, photographic records, collection of geographic coordinates with GPS, use of a recorder, and field notes. The research results revealed that, regarding the perception of tourism by residents and visitors, they associate it with three words: knowing, place, and culture. They understand tourism as "getting to know the culture and nature," as well as "new places and tourist destinations." Finally, Amazonian tourism is proposed as a reflective category capable of thinking about tourism in and for the Amazon from a perspective that has a deep relationship with the environment, the need for environmental conservation and biodiversity as conditions for the continuity of life, and also the reasons why visitors seek this place. Regardless of the name given to tourism, they wish to contemplate the forests, the river, the culture, in short, the socio-biodiversity.