Tourism in the Amazon in Times of Climate Change
In 2022, LETS released a work entitled Tourism, Sustainability and COVID-19: between uncertainties and hopes , in which he contributes with a chapter that deals 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. Or Title starts like this : "Tourism has stopped...".
For those who are not familiar with the rivers of the Amazon, it is important to clarify that the Rio Negro, the main tributary of the Solimões, is considered a sacred river by indigenous peoples. As it has the second largest basin in volume of water on the planet, in 2018, it entered 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 blackwater river, 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 in the south and southeast regions of Brazil the volume of accumulated precipitation (rainfall) presents a typical pattern of the El Niño phenomenon, with some cities registering accumulations three times above the average for October, there was a precipitation deficit for the northern region, according to the Bulletin of the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET). In addition to the reduction in rainfall, the heat wave and low humidity in the region, the rivers of the Amazon have dried up!
To better understand the situation, in more than 120 years of measuring the waters of the Negro River at the Port of Manaus, in October 2023, the biggest 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 red dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) And Tucuxis (Sotalia fluviatilis) were found dead. The researchers reveal that there is strong evidence between the death of freshwater dolphins and 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 dolphins were found.
In this chaotic scenario, we still live with a significant number of fires, which placed the capital Manaus, because of the smoke, among the worst cities in the world in terms of air pollution, according to the World Air Quality Index, a platform that tracks pollution levels in the world. In the urban area, tourist attractions were partially covered amid the smoke and, in rural areas, many communities are isolated and without water; There are joint efforts by the most diverse institutions to deliver food and drinking water to people affected by the drought.
In the face of so many simultaneous crises, tourism has been bravely resisting. It did not stop as it did at the worst time of the Covid-19 pandemic, but some small entrepreneurs who live in communities whose main source of income is tourism, once again found themselves faced with the need to suspend operations. Inns and restaurants, in the region of the Rio Negro, stopped serving visitors because the drought directly impacts navigability, which prevents reaching tourist attractions, not to mention that the heat makes a simple trip or even a trail in the forest strenuous 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 Amazon destination was partially influenced by the climate emergency, and water scarcity is proof of this.
The transport of cargo 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 the official tourism agencies, the municipality and the state, is to receive 25 thousand tourists on 19 cruise ships that will pass through Manaus in the 2023/2024 season, another task that requires redoubled effort from the authorities. These direct climate impacts are also humanitarian challenges, considering that the State Civil Defense announced, as I wrote this text, that the 62 municipalities of Amazonas have entered a state of emergency due to the historic drought and more than 600 thousand people are affected by the drought.
In view of this, tourism companies have additional concerns such as measures related to emergency cases, navigability, purchase of food and beverages, which can lead to increased operating costs or even their interruption, which has already been happening in more distant areas. Tourists need to find favorable conditions so that they can 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, and it is up to managers, planners and entrepreneurs to rethink the challenges of this sector. What we do know is that tourism is extremely vulnerable to extreme weather events; therefore, it remains for us to consider minimizing impacts with a focus 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 receiving community and the tourist, in case an extreme weather event occurs; policy, promoting mitigation and adaptation actions and initiatives and; (sic) with adequate planning and territorial ordering.
Thus, in the state with the largest territorial extension in the country, in the face of the isolation of riverside and indigenous communities, the lack of drinking water, food, especially fish, the difficulties of moving through the mud, the increase in the cost of living, health problems aggravated by extreme conditions, tourism is almost invisible in the midst of so many priority issues.
Tourism continues to try to reinvent itself, those who depend on it and who have had their operations suspended or impaired expect a change of scenario when the waters of the rivers rise and it does not hurt to reinforce that there is an urgent need to adopt 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. Research. Tur. São Paulo, 12(3), pp. 1-22, set./dez. 2018.