The identifications of opportunities for conservation and sustainable tourism at the end of the world, using a ?telecoupling mentality?.

PIZARRO, J. CRISTOBAL; S BENAVIDEZ; F TRONCOSO; RAYA REY A

Congreso; US-IALE 8-12 Abril 2018, Chicago, EEUU; 2018

Considering today global sustainability challenges involving human-nature teleconnections, researchers, managers, and decision-makers need to develop a "frame of mind" or "way of thinking" that fully consider telecouplings (i.e. natural and social systems connected over distances). This mentality not only consider collecting data on telecouplings fluxes, systems, and agents for research, but also creating solutions based on the opportunities that these connections provide. We argue this approach could be particularly useful for sustainability on wildlife tourism, in particular when receiver systems are remote and sensitive areas with an increasing flux of international tourists. In Ushuaia (Beagle Channel, South Patagonia in Argentina), we use ?telecoupling mentality? to collect sustainability measurements recommended from tourists? previous experiences visiting similar systems where they observed marine wildlife. We found tourists connected the Beagle Channel with other 34 Marine Wildlife destinations distributed worldwide, including wildlife viewing of walruses (Artic), penguin and seabird colonies (Antarctica, Punta Arenas-Chile) and whale watching (Sri Lanka, UK, and Canada). Most frequent over distance sea wildlife destinations connections were Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and Puerto Madryn also in Argentina. Using tourist previous experiences from similar destinations to the Beagle Channel, we foster the use of a "telecoupling mentality" to facilitate a flux of ideas between international tourists and business owners and local authorities, to improve not only services and facilities, but also biodiversity protection measurements.