Tourism impacts in mountain areas: visitor perception in recreational areas of Nahuel Huapi National Park

SEBASTIAN ROSSI; ANA HERNANDO JIMÉNEZ; AGUSTINA BARROS

Innsbruck

Conferencia; International Mountain Conference; 2019

Universitat Innsbruck

Nahuel Huapi National Park (NHNP) is internationally known for its native forests, endemic fauna, glaciers, high Andean mountains and emeralds lakes. Historically founded as a border strategy with the neighboring country Chile, NHNP was the first Park in La􀀁n America (1922). In the early 20th century, influenced by mountaineers from the Alps, new relationships with themountains began resulting in a growing touristic-recreational activity in the last decades that remains nowadays. At present, the Park has a complex recreation areas management context that involves multiple actors, a scarcity of economical resources and countless access issues difficulting patrolling and control in recreation areas. This brings several problems including obstacles to implement an adaptive management framework and effective visitors? monitoring programs, which in turn, results in the degradation of popular areas. The aim of this study (part of the PhD project), is to inquire about human-environment relationships exploring how visitors perceive and experience typical environmental degradation in recreation areas.