Nature tourism

Colombia’s natural heritage offers benefits for the positioning of nature tourism as a key strategy in local and regional development¹. At a national scale, both plans of state development and public policy have identified nature tourism as a potential for creating employment and attracting international currency, thus representing an essential industry for the economic development of the country¹ in a changing scenario such as that of the post-conflict.

Nature tourism is a product of cultural ecosystem services. However, when the loading capactiy of a determined area is surpassed, such services may decrease², so the continuous growth of the sector directly depends on the maintenance of healthy ecosystems and the balance between the offer and demand of ecosystem services³. In this context, ecosystem services are one of the main assets in the development of tourism in the country: annual profits fluctuate between 2.3 and 6.9 billion Colombian pesos⁴ for the case of the national natural parks.

In Colombia, the construction of territories that guarantee the conservation of biodiversity and include the active participation of local communities must be reinforced⁵Also, improving institutional capacities in relation to land use planning, along with planning and monitoring of ecosystem services balance, should be made a priority. To reach such goal, the following actions should take place: 1. Consolidate research about green markets and design ecotourism products, 2. Develop quality standards based on loading capacities of destinations according to ecosystem services balance, 3. Implement restoration and conservation actions that are associated with communities, 4. Promote and commercialize local services, 5. Improve processes of education, generation of information, and knowledge about biodiversity, among others.

A strategy for sustainably managing nature tourism implies that the multiple interested actors participate to maximize social and economic benefits, serve as a medium to create cultural conscience, preserve traditions and forms of life, and, finally, ensure the protection of the environment as the major guarantee of long term success in tourism¹. This has been proposed in different strategies such as the one that is currently being developed to position Colombia as an international avitourism destination.