Adventures in Southern Brazil

     The small town of Bonito, in the Serra da Bodoquena region of Mato Grosso do Sul, has become known in the adventure travel industry as one of the world’s most successful examples of sustainable tourism.  This is still an area primarily visited by Brazilian travelers from Sao Paulo and other metropolitan areas, but the number of foreign travelers is steadily increasing…. and for good reason!

    Until the late 1980s, Bonito was primarily a rural town centered on cattle ranching and agriculture, much like other nearby communities.  Farmers took advantage of large plots of land and mild weather to grow a number of crops, and graze livestock.  But along the edges of these properties lay an unusually high concentration of visually striking attractions that one doesn't normally associate with agricultural land - crystal-clear rivers, explorable caves, deep sinkholes, limestone cliffs and numerous waterfalls - that had all remained a secret from the outside world.  Through a unique organization of landowners, local municipal leaders, and tourism entrepreneurs, the community of Bonito began experimenting with tourism as a complementary or alternative source of income.

In the early 1990s, these landowners began organizing visitor access, investing in basic infrastructure, and collaborating with local guides, allowing Bonito to develop a critical mass of attractions more quickly than surrounding communities that remained focused on agriculture.  An incredible amount of early institutional coordination between landowners led them to establish standardized rules for environmental protection, guide training, and visitor management on these private properties, while also positioning the town of Bonito itself as the administrative and logistical center for tourism services.  While nearby towns hemmed and hawed, lacking consensus around tourism development despite their similar bounty of geological delights, Bonito became the natural gateway for visitors to the region - complete with its own airport by 2005 - reinforcing its role as the tourism hub.

Because most of these tourism activities occur in the canyons, riverbeds and limestone hills surrounding the agricultural heart of each property, agriculture and tourism now both occur side-by-side across dozens of properties throughout the area.  Today, the main street in Bonito still supports farm equipment and seed suppliers, tractor mechanics and truck dealerships, and more than one cowboy apparel store.  But the town also boasts a growing number of hotels, restaurants, ice cream parlors, local travel agencies and souvenir shops.

As visitor numbers grew, Bonito’s envirnmental and tourism leaders led it to make one more sustainable step - a centralized voucher system that strictly limits the number of visitors allowed at each attraction per day. By requiring advance booking with fixed schedules and mandatory local guides, the system ensures that tourism growth remains within environmental carrying capacities. It can make for some tricky planning, but that’s why you have Adventure Life!