Turning for tourism to survive

A small 40 member tribal group the Dessana tribe in the rainforests of Brazil was  living out of fishing and hunting in the middle of the Tupe reserve. Three decades ago nine members of the tribe have decided to move up 600 miles further up to be close the city Manaus with 2 million inhabitants and try to live from another, easier resource: Tourism.

They choose to commercialize they culture in order to survive. The "business" is successful but experts are concerned that the groups that went into tourism are at a risk of being exploited. The groups also instead of producing and procuring their own food by farming and hunting/fishing go to Manaus to buy their goods.

They make money buy presenting traditional dances, playing traditional music and selling homemade jewelry. The visitors are invited for a show and then they are also involved in the presentation by trying some of the dance moves. They can ask questions about the Dessana tribe's culture.

The visit to the village is usually a part of a package that includes a boat trip from Manaus. The village had hosted some games during the World Cup in 2014 so it had became more popular and known by international visitors.

The tour usually take tourists to see the meeting of waters where the black Rio Negro meets the brown Rio Solimoes. Additionally tourists can swim with amazon river dolphins, making the tour more authentic and exotic.

The tour costs 55$ on an average, but the problem is that there is no fixed agreement on how the revenue should be shared and how much the villagers should get. The 196 tourism agencies that guide tours to the village are not always paying any share to the tribals, instead they are forced to only lived from selling jewelry for 1-7 $.

Pedro Neto the director of Amazon Eco Adventures gives a share to the villages, but he says that regulations about payments need to be introduced. The National Indian Foundation, a brazilian government agency, also aims to protect the tribes and is negotiating about weather these regulations should be introduced.

An other organization the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation also runs entrepreneurial programmes in order to help these groups achieve a better and sustainable profit.

The biggest challenge of such tourism is to reserve the original culture and nature while achieving bigger turnover. 

Source: http://news.dk/nyhed/1589037/brazil-s-tribal-groups-adopt-tourism