Modelo para Evaluar la Capacidad de Carga Turística y Fortalecer el Liderazgo de Ingenieros Conservacionistas

Abstract

The growing touristic-recreational visit to the Protected Natural Areas (ANPs) is a world reality. In Mexico, tourism is one of the main economic activities that maintains close dependency relationships with the environment, however, at the planning level there is a clear postponement of environmental objectives compared to tourism. The concept of load capacity serves as an objective basis to define the sustainability of economic activities, which is why this research presents a model for assessing the carrying capacity of tourism in ANPs with the fundamental purpose of strengthening technical capacities and skills and of leadership of young engineering student conservationists, and of handing it over to government authorities for use as an analysis tool, which allows sustainable management in ANPs to not exceed the capacity of homeostasis and resilience due to tourism activity. Once the model was constructed, a group of students was handed over as a work instrument to solve problems of management and planning of recreation and tourism activities, taking care of the sustainable use of the resources of the ANPs under study. The results show a significant increase in the learning of students who work with the methodology proposed in this research compared to those who study the subject with the traditional methodology.