On Thursday 14th December a working day took place between the partners of the EcoTour project. We gathered at the Centre for Information and Communication Technologies for Tourism Innovation (CDTIC Tourism Innovation), a plenary meeting was held with the participation of representatives of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC, in particular with the research groups of Integrative biology and biological resources -BIRB- and Technologies, management and environmental geochemistry -TGBA-), the Technological Institute of the Canary Islands (ITC-Agua), the network of work for the management Sustainable marine resources of the West African eco-region (AFRIMAR), the National Directorate of Environment of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment of Mauritania, the Regional Tourism Association of the Azores (ART), the Mauritanian Tourism Federation (FT) and the Regional Partnership for Marine and Coastal Conservation in West Africa (PRCM), in addition to participation in coordination by the Cabildo of Gran Canaria (and especially the biosphere Reserve) and the Marine Science Technology Centre (CETECIMA ).
This plenary meeting analyzed the state of execution of the project, validating the completed documents and revising the methodologies for the next tasks to be developed by each of the partner entities. The definition of the concept of ecotourism was one of the points to continue working, being necessary to determine the indicators that represent in the different fields (economic, social and environmental) and the limitations so that an activity is considered such. In the meantime, research work has begun in each of the study areas, with the preliminary results of what will form the “Basic Information”: Analysis of the natural potential, historical and cultural value of the zones, map of uses and activities, list of companies operating in each area, etc. With this information, the next steps lead to the evaluation of the compatibility of the uses and the load capacity and acceptable limit of change for the case studies.
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