As atividades turísticas baseadas na alimentação artificial de botos-da-Amazônia (Inia geoffrensis) e a legislação ambiental brasileira

• Main Authors: Luiz Cláudio Pinto de Sá Alves, Carlos José Saldanha Machado, Rodrigo Machado Vilani, Marcelo Derzi Vidal, Artur Andriolo, Alexandre de Freitas Azevedo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal do Paraná 2013-12-01
• Series: Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente
• Subjects: wildlife artificial feeding; nature tourism; environmental policy
• Online Access: http://ojs.c3sl.ufpr.br/ojs2/index.php/made/article/view/31511/21659
• ISSN: 1518-952X; 2176-9109

Here we evaluate the touristic activity involving the interaction between botos (Inia geoffrensis) and humans based on the conditioning through artificial feeding in the light of the environmental legislation, using the Anavilhanas National Park (ANP) as case study. The Park is located in the Brazilian Amazon, in Novo Airão city, Amazonas State. This activity has significantly increased over the last years, as well as the literature describing its negative effects. By consulting the specialized literature, analyzing the legal framework and empirical material, it was verified that i) legally speaking this practice presents conflicts to some aspects of the Brazilian environmental legislation, ecotourism concepts and functions of the Conservation Units and, ii) administratively speaking, the environmental agencies are now taking appropriate steps to mitigate the negative impacts and gradual actions in order to alter the touristic activities to comply with the current environmental legislation. We conclude that there is still a lot to be done for the botos tourism model that occurs in the Brazilian Amazon to be conducted in a sustainable manner, suggesting that the group of heterogeneous actions proposed here be implemented to achieve that.