Ecotourism as basis for dustainable territorial development in the Sierra La Laguna Biosphere Reserve, Baja California Sur, México

Abstract

This article aims to be a methodological tool that, from the analysis of the importance and relevance of promoting a territorial system based on collaboration among social actors, proposes to study the possibilities and potentialities that could contribute to shaping and strengthening a ecotourism - based productive system In the Sierra La Laguna Biosphere Reserve, located in the northwest of the Mexican Republic, in the extreme south of the state of Baja California Sur and declared a Biosphere Reserve on June 6, 1994. The territory has a population of 431 Distributed on 83 ranches and dedicated to primary activities of little added value. In the territorial context, the ecotourism product in development must be valued as the nucleus around which the system’s productive chain is constituted and the strategies for its development must obey the responsible management of the natural and cultural resources, through the establishment of guidelines Of ordering that guide the decision making towards the design of coherent products, from the environmental, the social and the economic. As contributions of the research indicate the appropriate updating and adaptation on scientific bases of the development of the tourist activity to the specific conditions of the REBIOSLA; to reveal the elements that must form the relationships of actors in the development of a ecotourismbased productive system as an alternative to sustainable territorial development, and to favor an option to resolve the fundamental contradiction that is established between the relations of the different actors of the territory in the development of a sustainable tourism product.