War and ecotourism in the National Parks of Colombia: some reflections on the public risk and adventure

Abstract

AbstractRecent years have attested to the intensification of armed conflicts around the world. Although conflict and tourism—two of the most lucrative contemporary enterprises—seem incompatible concepts, a new relationship between risk and adventure is emerging. This paper attempts an approach to the incidence of armed conflict on ecotourism in Colombia considering its endemic sociopolitical variables. The situation of risk to potential tourism diffused by the mass media is founded on images of bombs, shootings, combats, massacres, drugs and kidnapping, making Colombia a dangerous country included in the black‐list of global tourism. Although ecotourism is considered one of the main strategies of the state environmental institutions for generating revenues in the National Parks, and their populations, the reality is that these areas have been transformed into places of armed direct confrontation for legal and illegal groups. Different strategies have been adapted by institutional agencies around ecotourism in National Parks, contesting problems generated by conflict. How is the challenge of ecotourism assumed in an attractive scenario for the leisure market and nature contemplation, but affected by war, like the National Parks? A clear position doesn't exist. The environmental authorities opt to close entry to visitors, and officials deny access permits to these areas; while on the other hand, politics of social participation are profiled in the conservation that looks to link the local populations of the Parks like the sustenance of conservation. Nevertheless, ecotourism is today a high‐risk adventure involving armed actors, illicit crops, traffic areas and refuge; but it is also one of the most interesting fields in the construction of peace that remains still unexplored, considering the cultural and ecological potential of the country beyond exclusively economic concepts. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.