The Minister of Environment, Adrián Peña Robaina signed the regulation that formalizes the processes of a Distinction of good environmental practices for tourism providers in protected areas. The objective of the beginning of this process is to travel together with the applicants the path of granting recognition, aligned to the fulfillment of the conservation objectives of each area defined for this instance.
The initiative, which has the support of the French government through the French Fund for the Global Environment (FFEM), is executed by the Ministry of the Environment (MA) in order to promote and enhance the development of sustainable production methods and consumption of goods and services to improve the economic capacities and living conditions of the inhabitants of the areas. Minister Peña Robaina highlighted the value of this tool, since “it allows identifying those who comply with certain conservation guidelines” of the natural and cultural values of Uruguay’s protected areas, and contribute to the local development of the populations linked to them. This is an initiative that began in the tourism production chain, but its application is expected to be extended to the fishing and grassland livestock chains in protected areas.
The chief maintained that the signing of this regulation “is the culmination of a long-term work” and acknowledged that “we are going to learn as we go and improve this tool that will allow producers to have a quality differential.” The project “Development of sustainable modalities of production and consumption of goods and services in the protected areas of the Uruguayan SNAP and its territorial environments” addresses these three chains in the protected areas Esteros de Farrapos and Islas del Río Uruguay (Río Negro), Montes del Queguay (Paysandù), Laguna Garzón (Maldonado and Rocha) and Laguna de Rocha (Rocha), and Valle del Lunarejo (Rivera) .
The chief informed that “although it starts with five protected areas in tourist services, the idea is to scale to other products and services and reach this distinction for all the areas of the National System of Protected Areas”, always contemplating as a reference the regulations that regulate their use such as the entry decrees and/or the management plan of each one of them. The resolution, which was signed within the framework of the Sustainable Tour of the Ministry of Environment (MA) at Expo Prado 2022, was attended by representatives of the French Embassy in Uruguay and the director of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Ministry of Environment. Environment, Gerardo Evia, who recognized that the concretion of this distinction is the result of a “accumulation process with the team of the National System of Protected Areas that is based on the standards of the UNIT standard for Sustainable Tourism and the Guidelines for Public Use in Protected Areas”. In turn, Evia reported that it is a brand that is owned by the Ministry of Environment, “managed by the National System of Protected Areas through the National Directorate of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to which service providers can apply voluntarily. tourist services that develop their activities within the areas”.
