Ecological Legacies and Ethnotourism: Bridging Science and Community in Ecuador’s Amazonia

Fausto O. Sarmiento (), Mark B. Bush, Crystal N. H. McMichael, C. Renato Chávez (), Jhony F. Cruz, Gonzalo Rivas-Torres, Anandam Kavoori, John Weatherford and Carter A. Hunt
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Fausto O. Sarmiento: Neotropical Montology Collaboratory (NMC), Department of Geography, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
Mark B. Bush: Institute for Global Ecology, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL 32901, USA
Crystal N. H. McMichael: Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands
C. Renato Chávez: Facultad de Recursos Naturales, Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo (ESPOCH), Riobamba 060155, Ecuador
Jhony F. Cruz: Facultad de Recursos Naturales, Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo (ESPOCH), Riobamba 060155, Ecuador
Gonzalo Rivas-Torres: Estación de Biodiversidad Tiputini, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Diego de Robles s/n e Interoceanica, Quito 170901, Ecuador
Anandam Kavoori: New Media Institute, College of Journalism, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
John Weatherford: New Media Institute, College of Journalism, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
Carter A. Hunt: Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management, and Anthropology, Penn State University, State College, PA 16801, USA

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 11, 1-26

Abstract: This paper offers paradigmatic insights from an international workshop on Ecological Legacies: Bridge Between Science and Community , in Ecuador, in the summer of 2023. The conference brought together foreign and local scholars, tour operators, village community, and Indigenous leaders in the upper Amazonia region of Ecuador with the goal of developing a vision for a sustainable and regenerative future of the upper Amazon. The conference offered three epistemological contributions to the existing literature in the emergent field of Montology, including addressing issues of (a) understanding the existing linguistic hegemony in describing tropical environments, (b) the redress of mistaken notions on pristine jungle environments, and (c) the inclusion of traditional knowledge and transdisciplinary approaches to understand the junglescape from different perspectives and scientific traditions. Methodologically, the conference bridged the fields of palaeoecological and ethnobotanical knowledge (as part of a wider conversation between science and local communities). Results show that local knowledge should be incorporated into the study of the junglescape and its conservation, with decolonial approaches for tourism, sharing language, methodology, tradition, and dissemination of the forest’s attributes. Our research helped co-create and formulate the “Coca Declaration” calling for a philosophical turn in research, bridging science and ethnotourism in ways that are local, emancipatory, and transdisciplinary. We conclude that facilitating new vocabulary by decolonial heightening of Indigenous perspectives of the junglescape helps to incorporate the notion of different Amazons, including the mountainscape of the Andean–Amazonian flanks. We also conclude that we can no consider Ecuador the country of “pure nature” since we helped demystify pristine nature for foreign tourists and highlighted local views with ancestral practices. Finally, we conclude that ethnotourism is a viable alternative to manage heritagization of the junglescape as a hybrid territory with the ecological legacies of the past and present inhabitants of upper Amazonia.

Keywords: ecotourism; ethnotourism; adventure tourism; regenerative tourism; ecological legacy; jungle-garden; jungle-park; fusion landscape; culture–nature hybrid (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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