ABSTRACT
Ever since the publication of Rachel Carson´s Silent Spring (1962) awareness has grown world-wide of the threats to the global environment from both natural and man-made sources. Although some schools of thought question the degree to which the earth may be in peril, a torrent of studies and scholarly writing still appears to establish that care for the earth is not a choice but an obligation and that ‘green’ approaches, as expressed over a wide spectrum of human endeavours from architecture to zoo-keeping, are the best guarantee that life on earth can be sustained well beyond the 21st century. Tourism of course is widely regarded as an important tool that can sustain precious natural resources while conferring economic and other benefits upon the societies or communities involved in the practice of sustainable tourism. This chapter will examine the case of the Amazon and show how a project for the establishment of integrated tourism circuits can be used as a tool for the development of sustainable tourism in that region.
