TRADITIONAL PEOPLE, PROTECTED AREAS AND TOURISM: A 15-YEAR BRAZILIAN CASE STUDY OF CULTURAL CHANGE

Abstract

Abstract For decades, conservation initiatives considered the protection of nature and human progress to be mutually exclusive. As a result of this paradigm, communities living within protected areas often were displaced or treated as invaders and criminals in their ancestral territories. Consequently, much cultural heritage, including traditional knowledge, has been lost. In part to prevent cultural loss, in the year 2000, Brazil legally acknowledged within Federal Act 9,985 the rights, knowledge and way of living of traditional people as integral for the conservation of nature. Based on the case of the traditional Caiçara community living at Martin de Sá (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), this study showcases fifteen years of cultural change influenced, among others, by the implementation of protected area policy and growth in tourism. Participatory observation between 2000 and 2015 identified changes to the community’s way of thinking, lifestyle and livelihoods. Strategies are proposed to increase cultural protection.

Keywords

• protected areas
• traditional people
• tourism
• cultural change