The Director of the Universitat de València’s Chair for New Green Transition Aurora Pedro was invited to participate in the International Symposium "Estrategias Socioculturales, Ambientales e Investigativas Para el Fomento del Ecoturismo Comunitarios, la Educación y Cultura Ambiental".
Symposium took place online on June 2nd, 3rd and 4th 2021 and was organised by the previously-mentioned University’s Faculty of Education Sciences’ Doctorate in Environmental Education and Culture.
The lecture addressed the “Sociocultural and Socioenvironmental Dimensions of the Community-based Ecotourism. Perspectives and Challenges”. Its goal was to highlight the most critical aspects to be taken into account in the development of this touristic typology, precisely due to the vulnerability of the involved communities. Indigenous communities must incorporate themselves to the touristic activity by adapting our tools to their features. Said communities represent an extremely important asset for the preservation of biodiversity and natural spaces, besides them having cultural, linguistic and governance traditions that define their identity and appeal. These precise resources are the ones at risk whenever generating touristic development processes with conceptual schemes exogenous to those communities. Their participation and prominence must constitute an essential principle in these processes.
The Symposium saw the participation of different Colombian Universities (University of Quindío, National University of Colombia’s Bogotá and Manizales Headquarters, University of Antioquia, etc.) as well as those of other countries such as the Universitat de València (Spain), Sunshine Coast University (Australia), Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Universidad de Ciencias Pedagógicas Enrique Varona (Cuba).
