In 2022, LETS launched a work titled Tourism, Sustainability and COVID-19: between uncertainties and hopes , in which he contributes a chapter dealing with the impacts of the pandemic on the communities of the Rio Negro (AM), one of the most important and largest freshwater rivers on the planet. The title starts like this : ‘Tourism stopped...’.
For those unfamiliar with the Amazonian rivers, it is important to clarify that the Negro River, the main tributary of the Solimões, is considered a sacred river by indigenous peoples. Due to possessing the second largest basin by water volume on the planet, in 2018, it was included in the List of Wetlands of International Importance conferred by the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental treaty created on February 2, 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar. This list is based on the recognition, by the signatories, of the ecological importance and the social, economic, cultural, scientific, and recreational value of wetlands.
Along this imposing river of black waters, many indigenous and riverside communities receive visitors to experience a unique tourism, in which bathing in its waters is part of the itinerary. In 2023, in a scenario of climate change, while in some states of the southern and southeastern regions of Brazil the accumulated precipitation volume (rain) presents a typical pattern of the El Niño phenomenon, with some cities registering accumulated rainfall three times above the October average, there was a precipitation deficit for the northern region, according to the Bulletin of the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET). Besides the reduction in rainfall, the heatwave, and low humidity in the region, the Amazonian rivers have dried up!
To better understand the situation, in over 120 years of measuring the waters of the Negro River at the Port of Manaus, in October 2023, the worst drought in history was recorded. The extreme drought punishes several municipalities in Amazonas. In Tefé, for example, in the middle Solimões, according to the Technical Bulletin of the Mamirauá Institute, more than 150 pink river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) and tucuxis (Sotalia fluviatilis) were found dead. Researchers reveal that there is strong evidence linking the death of freshwater dolphins to the increase in the temperature of the waters of Lake Tefé, which reached close to 39 0 C. More recently, in the city of Coari, also in the interior of Amazonas, more than 20 carcasses of red river dolphins were found.
In this chaotic scenario, we also coexist with an expressive number of fire outbreaks, which placed the capital Manaus, due to the smoke, among the worst cities in the world in air pollution, according to World Air Quality Index, a platform that monitors pollution levels worldwide. In urban areas, tourist attractions were partially obscured by smoke, and in rural areas, many communities are isolated and without water; there are joint efforts by various institutions to deliver food and drinking water to people affected by the drought.
Faced with so many simultaneous crises, tourism has been bravely resisting. It did not stop as it did during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, but some small entrepreneurs who live in communities whose main source of income is tourism, once again found themselves needing to suspend operations. Inns and restaurants in the Negro River region stopped serving visitors because the drought directly impacts navigability, which prevents access to tourist attractions, not to mention that the heat makes simple travel or even a forest trail exhausting for the tourist.
In 2007, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) produced a document on climate change and tourism which stated that climate change would affect tourist destinations, their competitiveness, and sustainability. It is noted that the viability of the Amazonas destination was partially influenced by the climate emergency, and water scarcity is proof of this.
The transport of goods with inputs destined for companies in the Manaus Industrial Pole required a more complex operation for the ships to be able to dock. The forecast of official tourism bodies, from the municipality and the state, is to receive 25,000 tourists on 19 cruise ships that will pass through Manaus in the 2023/2024 season, another task that requires doubled effort from the authorities. These direct climatic impacts are also humanitarian challenges, considering that the State Civil Defense announced, while I was writing this text, that all 62 municipalities in Amazonas have entered a state of emergency due to the historic drought and more than 600,000 people are affected by the drought.
Given this, tourism companies have additional concerns such as measures related to emergency cases, navigability, purchase of food and beverages, which can lead to an increase in operating costs or even their interruption, which is already happening in the most distant areas. The tourist needs to find favorable conditions to make the most of the experience in the chosen destinations and, given this reality, it will be necessary to move towards strategies that can mitigate the impacts on tourism.
At the same time that tourism is impacted by climate change, it also contributes to this climate change through the use of fossil fuels and energy, for example, leaving managers, planners, and entrepreneurs to rethink the challenges of this sector. What we know is that tourism is extremely vulnerable to extreme weather events; therefore, we must consider minimizing the impacts by focusing on the following dimensions, as pointed out by Grimm, Alcântara, and Sampaio (2018) [1] :
economic, through new investments, technologies, and marketing strategies; environmental with the protection and rational use of resources; social, promoting the reduction of poverty, the reduction of tourist vulnerability, ensuring the physical safety of the host community and the tourist, in case of an extreme climatic event; political, promoting mitigation and adaptation actions and initiatives; and spatial with adequate planning and territorial ordering.
Thus, in the state with the largest territorial extension in the country, given the isolation of riverside and indigenous communities, the lack of potable water, food, especially fish, the difficulties of displacement amidst the mud, the increase in the cost of living, and health problems aggravated by extreme conditions, tourism becomes almost invisible amidst so many priority issues.
Tourism continues to try to reinvent itself, those who depend on it and whose operations were suspended or harmed hope for a change of scenery when the river waters rise, and it is worth reinforcing the urgent need for the adoption of public policies that include, more than ever, discussions about tourism and climate change.
[1] Grimm, I. J. ; Alcântara, L. C. S. ; Sampaio, C. A. C. Tourism in the scenario of climate change: impacts, possibilities and challenges. Rev. Bras. Pesq. Tur. São Paulo, 12(3), pp. 1-22, Sep./Dec. 2018.
