Community capitals and ecotourism for enhancing Amazonian forest livelihoods

Abstract

This article examines ‘whether’ and ‘how’ ecotourism functions to strengthen Amazonian livelihoods in remote areas and community capitals as well helping to protect the environment in rural planning and development. It focuses on the role of ecotourism as a possible enhancer of human, social and natural capitals in the Maripá community. Capitals are believed to be the mainstay for group-oriented practices, harmony, dissemination of knowledge, and maintenance of a healthy and sustainable environment. The decision of making ecotourism an avenue for regional planning and development can work better if communities make ecotourism a collective enterprise, producing collective socio-economic and environmental advantages. As a conceptual follow-up to ‘community capitals’, the authors introduce and discuss a hypothetical cycle of anxiety and elation situation in (eco)tourism development. The article is qualitatively oriented, based on participant observations and open interviews that occurred during a three-month field trip in 2005. Updates were done until November 2010. The analysis is centered on Central Amazonia, particularly on the Puxirum ecotourism project in the Arapiuns-Tapajós region.