Frederico Tofani,"The Challenges of Sustainable Development in Coastal Communities under the Impact of Tourism: the Case of Porto Seguro in Southern Bahia, Brazil"

Since the beginning of the second half of this century, a myriad of worldwide phenomena have caused the word "tourism" to be intrinsically associated with pleasure, profit, and development. At the moment, tourism is one of the largest and fastest booming sectors of the global economy, a way of living for more than 120 million laborers, and an indispensable part of the lifestyles of millions of families all over the world. Moreover, the significance that tourism has attained has led many governments and international agencies to enthusiastically promote it as a powerful way towards socioeconomic development for settings facing scarce resources, but holding rich cultural and environmental assets.

Nevertheless, both the spontaneous and planned development of tourism has not come without heavy costs for many fragile host communities, especially in developing countries. This thesis examines the role played by this activity in those destinations and, moreover, it undertakes a comprehensive investigation of the environmental, sociocultural, and economic impacts and trends that a particular coastal setting has sustained by reason of the emergence, early growth, and boom of tourism. This place embodies urban, rural, and natural areas within or linked to the municipality of Porto Seguro, on the southern shore of the state of Bahia, Brazil.

Porto Seguro has its origins merged with the genesis of the Brazilian history. It was there that, in April 1500, the Portuguese navigators who discovered the country first set foot.

Although it was one of the earliest places occupied by Europeans in South America, historical circumstances kept it isolated from the rest of the world from the late- 16th century until the early-1970s. Then, the opening of the federal highway BR-101 across Southern Bahia connected this beautiful setting to the major economic areas of the country and made possible the rise of the tourism phenomenon.

Tourism has brought many important improvements to Porto Seguro that centuries of isolation had denied. However, the severe negative facets of this phenomenon have also demonstrated how paradoxical - if not incongruent - the development of a once isolated, traditional, and sensitive setting can be when it is suddenly exposed to rapid and uncontrolled tourism growth. Tourism is relying on unique sets of sensitive built heritage and ecosystems, but it is also inflicting heavy - if not irreversible - damageto them. Tourism is enabling the once inwardly-centered Porto Seguro to become more cosmopolitan, but it is also tearing down its meaningful traditional sociocultural basis. It is introducing "alluring" outside ways-of-life, but it is also giving rise to high levels of tension towards outsiders. Tourism is introducing "modem" parameters of what determines economic accomplishments and development, but it is not equally distributing the means to achieve them. It is introducing "modem" economic structures, but it is also introducing hunger, exclusion, and destitution. It is generating jobs, improvements, and wealth, but it is also generating massive immigration, high unemployment rates, and misery.

This hazardous situation has led to serious doubts about the contributions that tourism might make to Porto Seguro and, moreover, it has established enormous challenges towards asserting a tourism development framework firmly grounded on sustainable principles.

Atlantic Planners Institute

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This document was last modified on June 20, 2000.