Unraveling the paths of water as aquatic cultural services for the ecotourism in Brazilian Protected Areas

Protected Areas (PAs) are fundamental to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. Moreover, PAs also provide different cultural, economic and social services for human populations. The interaction of visitors with natural habitats of PAs through contemplation or ecotourism activities (sports, education, and other activities), provides important cultural and social services for human population, reducing the stress and increasing physical and mental health of people. Here, we tested whether the number of tourists in Brazilian Protected Areas is influenced by aquatic resources and their cultural services. Moreover, we evaluated the influence of other variables to explain the number of ecotourism in PAs: size area, age, geographic distance to urban areas, population density of cities around the PA and PA's popularity. Brazil has a total of 334 Protected Areas administered by the Brazilian Federal Government, from which we obtained the number of tourists to a total of 125 PAs. In 2019, the total number of tourists that visited Brazilian Federal PAs was 14,475,124, moreover, the most visited PA was the National Park of Tijuca situated in the Rio de Janeiro. Our results indicated that PAs more visited presented frequently recreational activities like swimming, canoeing, fishing, boat ride. Besides, PAs more visited are closer to cities, have higher population densities, and have greater popularity (number of hits in the internet). Thus, our results reinforce the importance of aquatic ecosystems as a cultural service jointly with social and demographic factors for Brazilian Protected Areas tourism. Also, it reinforces the importance of developing good strategies with the interaction among different players in the conservation process.