TCD students and alumna working together to improve tourism and conservation in the Brazilian Amazon

October 17, 2019 No Comments » News Patricia Delamonica Sampaio

For a week, TCD students Igor Vianna and Ana Luiza Violato Espada, worked with TCD alumna Paula Pinheiro, to prospect new activities related to canoeing, ecotourism, and naturally protected areas in the Western Brazilian Amazon.

Every year, since 2017, Igor Vianna and Ana Luiza organize outrigger paddling expeditions in the Amazonian rivers as a strategy to bring together paddlers from different regions of Brazil (but also other countries) to get to know the Amazon through water sports.

For Igor, it is a strategy that links ecotourism activities and natural resources conservation, “when we know the environment around us, we take care of it. We use water sport as an alternative for people to better know the amazing natural resources that we have in the Amazon region, and we hope it can help to conserve our forests and rivers.”

Expeditionary visiting Tapajós Natural Forest with forest-based dwellers as guides.

The outrigger paddling expeditions usually happen in July. During the first one, back in 2017, more than 20 people paddled from Santarém to Belém making 1,000 km in 11 days. In 2018, 30 paddlers divided into two expeditions (15 paddlers each) made 200 km from Santarém to Henry Ford City, Fordlândia. In 2019, 18 paddlers made Santarém to Cachoeira do Aruã and 22 paddlers paddled from Santarém to Fordlândia. More than practice the sport, members of the expedition have the opportunity to interact with local communities and visit protected areas like the Tapajós National Forest and Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve.

The home, for a week, for the expeditionary that serves as a support boat

For Antônio, from Rio de Janeiro, iIt is more than just paddling, we have an authentic Amazonian experience, because for a week, we live in a boat, sleeping in hammocks like local people, we eat local food, and we meet indigenous people. For me, it is like Disney World, but for paddlers.” Antônio has been coming to the outrigger paddling expeditions every year since 2017.

This year, Igor and Ana invited Paula Pinheiro to have this experience and to discuss the possibility to have such expeditions in the Mosaico do Baixo Rio Negro (Lower Rio Negro Mosaic), in Amazonas state. The Lower Rio Negro Mosaic is a huge block of protected areas covering more than 7,5 million hectares of continuous forest in the Brazilian Amazon. It coordinates between 13 conservation units of different types in the Amazon rainforest to the northwest of the state capital, Manaus.

For Paula, “the expedition provides an amazing experience for visitors. It is a very effective way to connect people to the Amazon forest and raise awareness on the importance of conserving it. Besides the sport, visitors want to see how people live, hear their stories and learn from them. It is an unforgettable experience.”

Igor and Ana met Paula in Gainesville, FL during a TCD event in 2017. Since then, they stayed in touch to develop ecotourism activities in Amazonian protected areas. Paula is a biologist with a PhD in Interdisciplinary Ecology, with TCD certificate at University of Florida. She works as an environmental analyst at Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), the Brazilian governmental agency for management of protected areas. Igor is a new TCD student starting his master degree at MALAS in August, 2019 with Dr. Angélica Almeyda Zambrano (SPEC Lab). He has ample practical experience working with water sports, recreation and tourism in the Brazilian Amazon region. Ana is a PhD candidate at SFRC working with Dr. Karen Kainer to analyze community-based timber management in Brazilian Amazonian protected areas.