Ecotourism, sea turtles, and livelihoods: Adaptation and resistance to development and conservation in Mexico and Brazil

This dissertation's objective is to understand how two communities, Praia do Forte, in Brazil and Mazunte, in Mexico engage in development and conservation practices through work, protest and discourses. Development is represented here by ecotourism and conservation by sea turtle projects and environmental regulations. Sea turtle conservation projects in both locations represent the strong external intervention of the federal government and of the scientific community on traditional livelihoods. This dissertation analyzes both conservation project and ecotourism development using a comparative perspective via onsite ethnography.;Using a comparative method, the dissertation discusses the transversal topic of ecotourism development and wildlife conservation. The research focused on communities that had exploitive economies that were forcibly converted into conservation-based economies by ecotourism and sea turtle environmental project.;Some propositions are advanced in order to frame and direct the research. The first examines the changes environmental and tourism policies implicated in local livelihoods. The second focuses on the new social and political structures that emerged with this new economic context of ecotourism or nature tourism development. The third concerns the economic, social and political strategies developed by the community to contend with these changes in their livelihoods. The fourth suggests that difficulties and conflicts that exist between environmental conservation projects, ecotourism and local communities have to be interpreted by looking at issues of power and discourse. Conservationists, developers and communities have different understandings of ecotourism and wildlife conservation.;Ecotourism in the northern coast of Bahia, Brazil, where the community of Praia do Forte is located has been stimulated by different vectors: international investments through medium size and large size hotels, government incentives through specific tourism funding programs; and the conservation sea turtles project TAMAR. The development of ecotourism in the Costa Chica of Oaxaca, where Mazunte is located, started after the ban on sea turtle hunting in 1990. The federal government invested in basic infrastructure for tourism and for the establishment of the sea turtle conservation project CMT. This project, sea turtles and alternative development patterns have been the major vectors stimulating ecotourism in this area.