Itacaré/Serra Grande : COP 15 is here!

The CO2 Neutral Tourism Program has started 2010 with the participation of 100 tourism-related businesses in the cities of Itacaré and Serra Grande. Since December 2008, entrepreneurs and traditional small scale farmers have been building an agreement for the reduction of global warming through conservation and socioeconomic and human development.

COP 15? UN Conference on Climate Change? Copenhagen? Agreement? It would be great if the leaders who were there could come here to get to know the experience that it was born here on our land. The equation is simple: those who emit CO2, neutralize and reduce it and those who have the talent to take care of the land and need support, do the reforestation and preservation. That’s the equation entrepreneurs of the Itacaré/Serra Grande Environmental Protection Area and its traditional small scale farmers are developing and solving.

More than an equation, what it was born and it is happening here is a fine agreement, as peculiar as essential and as dreamed as real. The CO2 Neutral Tourism Program has been working through the tourism business universe with a fairly new concept, proposing the local businessmen to invest in the business relationship with nature – taking into consideration that the success of tourism business has close relation with the nature in its surroundings. But it does not stop here! The program also offers these businessmen the opportunity to invest in their business relationship with the countryside – taking into consideration that the tourism business also has a close relation with migration of people to the outskirts of large cities. Is that all ? No. The program starts to expand this proposal to tourists, inviting them to invest in the relation between leisure and planet conservation – also taking into consideration that their leisure is closely related to the various interferences and impacts they cause in the touristic destination.

Will the Carbon Neutral Tourism Program, the entrepreneurs and the traditional small scale farmers’ families solve all environmental, social and structural problems of our destination? Certainly not. To make it happen, it is necessary to make many other agreements among the different segments which are part of this scenario. There is a poet who said “those who really know their village know the world.” Make an agreement is not a simple task anywhere in the world, regardless the nature and scale of the problems but the important thing is the attitude and the willingness to reduce or erase differences. We have a mini COP 15 here, built step by step, with concepts, practices and financial responsibility being gradually integrated by its participants. A good start from our villages to the world!

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