Impact of nature tourism in Vi��ales National Park. Cuba

With the interest of the strategic environmental assessment to prevent and minimize the deterioration of the factors that determine the tourist attractiveness of the environment of Viñales National Park and to ensure the implementation of measures to reverse or offset the environmental impacts arising from the pressures of nature tourism development in particular it was determined to conduct a study and characterization of the main modalities of nature tourism in that region as part of a research project on goods and ecosystem services. Five of the 30 options approved for exploitation by different operators of this developing tourism modality were selected based on three indicators selected by the expert group which through workshops evaluated the preferences of visitors the attractions of the nature tourism options and those with the highest number of visitors. The main environmental impacts and their causes were identified and evaluated in addition to their classification determining that even when there are no critical negative effects whose consequences could be irreversible it is necessary to adopt immediate mitigation measures.