A businesswoman with a mission

She showed there’s plenty for a tourist to do in the middle of the forest

By Roger Hamilton

As Vitória da Riva Carvalho tells it, her decision a decade ago to build an ecotourism lodge was not warmly received by the townspeople of Alta Floresta, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.

“They thought I was crazy,” she recalls. “They wanted to know, ‘what are people going to do in the middle of the forest.’”

Even worse, they said she was selfish, assuming that her passion for conserving nature was solely motivated by her need to attract ecotourists to her lodge. “They said, ‘Saving the forest is a business only for you. If we want to live, we have to cut the trees.’”

“I suffered a great deal,” she admits.

Evidently, a touch of craziness runs in the family. Back in 1976, her father, former gold miner Ariosto da Riva, raised eyebrows when he sold everything he had to buy 800,000 hectares of Amazonian forest. He then distributed much of his land to 150,000 settlers, and founded Alta Floresta. He went on to design a model community of parks and broad avenues that last year celebrated its 25^th anniversary.

“He was a pioneer, and I am a pioneer of ecotourism,” says Riva Carvalho. But unlike her father, she is not a pioneer of the swashbuckling sort. In her neatly pressed khaki pants and reading glasses dangling around her neck, she is every inch a successful businesswoman (she also owns a hotel in Alta Floresta). She speaks with crisp authority and notices any detail that is out of place. At a meeting, an almost imperceptible motion of her finger will bring an employee instantly to her side.

But her business savvy is leavened with a strong dose of idealism. Raised on her father’s ranch, she grew up in the outdoors. She retained her love of nature when she moved to São Paulo to teach English, marry and raise a family, and later study business administration.

A slow start. Starting an ecotourism business was a leap into the unknown. “Back then, ecotourism was nothing,” she recalls. So she went abroad to take courses, and participated in an ecotourism workshop in Brazil.

She chose a place for her ecolodge, a bend in the Cristalino River, in the middle of a vast expanse of pristine rain forest. She built a cluster of modest buildings, and anchored a raft in a backwater where tourists would enjoy a quiet evening of conversation and caipirinhas. She laid out a system of trails. Then she waited.

Nobody came. “We had immense difficulties,” she recalls. She had no money for marketing and no help from the government. A map produced by the state tourism agency didn’t even include Alta Floresta, let alone her ecolodge. Nor could she count on free television publicity, as could the fishing lodges in the Pantanal, in the southern part of the state. “You can make a video of people catching fish,” she says, “but nobody wants to see people watching birds.”

Finally she received her first guest, an ornithologist from the United States. After that, word quickly spread that this was a birdwatcher’s paradise. Several major international companies specializing in birdwatching tours started sending clients, and scientists began using her lodge as a base of operations. (See www.cristalinolodge.com.br at right for a virtual tour of the Cristalino Jungle Lodge.)

Although being an ecotourism pioneer would be enough for many people, it wasn’t for Riva Carvalho. Along the way she helped found the Brazil Ecotourism Society, and was elected its vice president. She joined the U.S.-based International Ecotourism Society and participated in its congresses. Through her Cristalino Ecological Foundation, she helped convince the state government to establish a 66,900-hectare park, which is contiguous to her own land holdings, which are themselves under legal protection as a Private Natural Heritage Reserve. Her foundation is now working to buy other highly biodiverse forest tracts that are threatened by agricultural expansion and illegal logging. These lands would be managed by Brazilian nongovernmental organizations in partnership with international NGOs.

Her pet project is to turn an island her family owns in the middle of the Teles Pires River into a field station for visiting scientists.

Looking for company. Anything happening in the Amazon having to do with ecotourism must include “Dona Vitória,” as she is called, and the IDB-financed Protecotur program is no exception. Mato Grosso is one of the nine Amazonian states participating in the program, and Alta Floresta sits in the middle of Mato Grosso’s “ecotourism pole.”

Each of the Proecotur “ecotourism poles” has a steering committee made up of key local officials, business leaders, and civil society representatives. As a member of her area’s committee, Riva Carvalho is helping to plan for the future of ecotourism in her area. Although conservation remains a top priority, she recognizes the need to bring in more ecotourism lodges for business reasons.

“We need a greater ecotourism critical mass,” she says. A group of ecotourism businesses working together could make joint purchases and carry out marketing campaigns. A variety of local attractions will draw more tourists and encourage them to stay longer. Already, the state of Mato Grosso has declared a nearby river a “sport fishing reserve,” and a new lodge there is gearing up to receive guests. A nearby town is planning to make a tourist attraction out of a hilltop covered with mysterious rock carvings.

She sees better transportation a key to future growth. She recalls the first plane, which had 12 seats and “flew whenever they felt like it.” Things have improved since then, she says. But flights are still uncertain, and costly. A major objective is to get discounted fares for tourists, which will particularly help to stimulate Brazilian tourism. Another is to expand the airport. Having more ecotourism enterprises will increase pressure to make these changes happen.

At last, the people of Alta Floresta are beginning to understand, she says. “They see that I am working for the community, and that we can all benefit from protecting the forest. One of the most beautiful ways to protect nature is through ecotourism.”

Date posted: February 2002

A slow start.
Looking for company.

Take a virtual tour of the Cristalino Jungle Lodge.

Jump-starting ecotourism in the Brazilian Amazon
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