Sustainable Tourism: Preserving and Showcasing Peru´s Treasures

Belen market, Iquitos

Allow me to make a few introductions.  First Carlitos, an independent guide who works in Arequipa and Colca Canyon country.  Carlitos is a young, 20-something-year-old Peruvian who´s finishing his studies in tourism while living the life of a full-time guide. Second is Gart, general manager of San Pedro Lodge in the heart of the Amazon. Gart is a Dutchman who moved to Peru 6 years ago and wound up sharing his love for the Amazon by taking over the reins at San Pedro Lodge in April.

While these men´s backgrounds—and the regions where they´ve chosen to work—differ vastly, their thoughts are consumed by a common problem: sustainable tourism in Peru.

I´ll admit that I, like many people, hadn´t given much thought to the concept of ¨tourism¨ before coming to Peru. As a child, most of my family vacations were to other U.S. cities, where the negative impacts of tourism are mostly observed in the form of chain restaurants and brand name stores stamping out competition from local retailers and mom and pop shops. But in a country like Peru—where interest in cultural, historical, and ecotourism is exploding—the subject cannot be ignored. 

During our Colca Canyon trek, I remember that Carlitos mentioned the struggle of balancing the expectations of tourists with the needs of the local citizens of Tapay, Cosnirwa, and Malata. He´s trying to figure out how he can give tourists a ¨local¨ experience without exploiting the natives or making them seem ¨primitive¨ or ¨exotic.¨ And he´s also grappling with the best way to share the capital generated from canyon tourism: is it better to let the locals sell their own products or to give them a cold cut of the money?

Taken on the boat ride back to San Pedro Lodge.

In the Amazon, the implications of tourism are both economic and environmental. Over a glass of camu camu juice, I heard Gart discussing jungle tourism with a man from San Pedro village.  Gart stressed the importance of educating local community members about the dangers of pollution and deforestation, both of which put native plant and animal species at-risk. He also noted that this type of carelessness drives tourists—who come to the jungle looking for an opportunity to ¨commune¨ with nature—away.  Yet locals argue that until they start reaping the benefits of tourism—increased cash flow and employment opportunities—the logging industry is their only viable career path.

In fact, all of Peru´s greatest treasures are simultaneously vulnerable to and dependent upon tourism. On the border between Peru and Bolivia, locals who inhabit the islands of Lake Titicaca have notoriously (and repeatedly) been cheated their fair share of tourism capital by the agencies who ferry travelers there, leaving the locals with very few resources to provide their families with food and shelter.

Not just a picture of Machu Picchu´s impressive terraces: notice the string cutting the photo diagonally. It´s there to measure the movement of the stones and the mountain.

Even the country ´s crown jewel, Machu Picchu, is in danger. According to the National Chamber of Tourism, the site will have attracted at least 1 million visitors this year alone. This signifies a giant boom for Peru´s economy, but it also means  the Inca´s most impressive achievement is rapidly eroding and deteorating. Due to poor regulations of the site, UNESCO has, on several occasions, threatened to put the ruin on its list of World Heritage sites in Danger.

With the potential for the Amazon jungle to be included on the list of the New 7 Natural Wonders, it will be interesting to see if—and when—the Peruvian government will start making aggressive changes to the tourism biz to protect the country´s natural and manmade wonders. Unfortunately, with the industry generating over $3 billion in revenue this year, the likelihood of short-term changes looks dismal.

For now, like it so often happens, our hope is not in the hands of the national government, but in individuals like Gart and Carlitos.