Brazil

Hiking Tours / Brazil – Ecotourism is a nature based form of specialty travel defined by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) as “responsible travel to natural areas which conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people.”

This definition has been widely accepted, but does not serve as a functional definition for gathering statistics. No global initiative presently exists for the gathering of ecotourism data. Ecotourism should be considered a specialty segment of the larger nature tourism market.

Recognizing the global importance of ecotourism, the United Nations designated the year 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism. In May this year the World Ecotourism Summit in Quebec, Canada, organized jointly by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) resulted in the Quebec Declaration on Ecotourism, containing 49 specific guidelines for sustainable ecotourism development and management.

According to the Quebec Declaration on Ecotourism, Brazil Adventure International applies the following principles of sustainable ecotourism to their tours:

       - contributes actively to the conservation of biodiversity, protected areas and world heritage sites,

       - includes local and indigenous communities in its operation, contributing to their well-being,

       - interprets the natural and cultural heritage of the destination to visitor,

       - lends itself better to independent travellers, as well as to organized tours for small size groups.