ANAGEMENT OF TOURISM AND ENVIRONMENT IN A SMALL RURAL AND TOURISTIC COMMUNITY FROM MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL

Abstract

The relation between tourism and environment regards an approach of the rural clusters methodologies with tourism planning. The sustainable tourism and micro basin management was performed in a typical rural community named “Saco da Vida”, a declining lake tourism destination, whose main attracton, the Eyes of Water Dam was totally polluted by industrial and domestic sewerage from Sete Lagoas City (Minas Gerais State), discharged on the Jequitibá Stream which supplies the dam. This study considers, in historical bases, the political and social immobility that pervade the institutions and the scientific methodologies. The innovations about rural development suggest a new treatment for sustainable management of supply chain, confronting the rural clusters methodology with the sustainable tourism planning methodology. As a result, it presents an innovative model of management for rural tourism clusters inside rural tourism nuclei, starting from micro management, as a form to avoid the anomie and sociotechnical threats set free through the neoliberal and neo merchantilist models of economic growth and development.