Geotourism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Geotourism consists of an activity that is located at the interface of nature tourism and cultural tourism, as it can develop in both natural and rural environments as well as in urban environments, disclosuring and promoting geodiversity and its geoheritage in a strict sense or its relationship with civilizations and cultures, in a lato sense. It consists of the addition of geodiversity and geoheritage to the tourist activity, focused on places of geotourism interest, benefiting the local communities and giving a new tourist experience to the visitors.
This thesis aims to fill a gap regarding the mapping, with subsequent disclosure, of the situ geodiversity in situ, geoheritage and geodiversity ex situ associated with the Cultural Heritage of João Pessoa (PB) and surroundings, through the union of the natural aspects, especially the abiotic ones to cultural aspects. In order to promote the dissemination of the valued abiotic environment and the Cultural Heritage of the area, products were developed, of which the geotouristic map with specific itineraries is highlighted, divided into three parts (Historic Center, Urban Coast and South Coast), also in the form of folders and three geointerpretative panels in emblematic places of geoturistic interest distributed in each one of these parts.
After an extensive collection of geoscientific information about the Paraíba Basin and a detailed analysis of historical documents about the Parahyba Capitany and its Cultural Heritage, 48 geotouristic interest locals were selected in the area, of which 35 were associated with the abiotic environment (Geodiversity and Geoheritage) and 13 to the Cultural Heritage. Initially, these locals were inventaried, by completing a record, in which aesthetic, scientific, cultural, functional (ecological) and economic values played a fundamental role.
Subsequently, the geotouristic interest locals associated with the abiotic environment were evaluated from a semiquantitative point of view, through a methodology proposed in this work, where aesthetic, cultural, scientific, functional (ecological) and use values were considered, where those with the highest geotouristic potentials were inserted in the route, resulting in 24 geotourism interest locals.
Considering the geoutourism activity, although sustainable, can cause damages where it is carried out, a semiquantitative evaluation of the ‘Imminent Risk Index’ of the geotourism sites associated to the abiotic environment was calculated, using as an indicator the ‘Need for Protection’ of each local, from 10 weighted parameters.
Concomitant with the evaluations carried out, it was analyzed the perception that travelers who were in the Parahyba Capitany during the colonial period had about the physical environment that was primordial for the consolidation and urban expansion of the capital, resulting in its cultural landscape in which the privileged nature, associated to the important cultural heritage, resulted in the appropriation of this coastal environment, with the consequent urban evolution dating from the sixteenth century. For this, it was used a large iconographic and textual documentation elaborated during the period, with the role of adding to the geotouristic route this information.
In this perspective, it is concluded that the area of the present thesis has potential for the insertion of the geotourism activity, since it presents undeniable historical and geoscientific importance, as, respectively João Pessoa is the fourth oldest city in the country and the Paraíba Basin was the last to detach itself from the African continent when the southern portion of the megacontinent Pangeia, denominated Gondwana, fragmented. In addition, a new meaning could be attributed to the landscape, ranging from the aesthetic-artistic to the functional-economic, and it was intentional to interlace the geoheritage elements to the cultural practices that forged the city and the identity of the people who settled on it, as well as interlace the geoheritage to the tourism in João Pessoa, so that another motivation awakens the interest of the tourists, now turned to the bias of the lithosphere and hydrosphere, allied to the local centennial culture.