Dark Sky Park
“Novo Aripuana” is a Brazilian county in the interior of the state of Amazonas, Northern Region of the country. It belongs to the Mesoregion of Southern Amazon and Microregion of the Wood (Microregião do Madeira). Its population, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica IBGE) in 2015, was 24.315 people. Its territorial area is 41.191 square kilometers, what makes it one of the largest counties in Brazil by territorial land. The county of Novo Aripuana is made of two other dismembered territories - Borba and Manicoré- that is why its history is directly connected to these counties. The Madeira River is the main access to it. The first penetrations into the Madeira River are from 1637, and after that comes the expedition of Pedro Teixeira, linking “Belém do Pará” to Quito, in Ecuador. Firstly the indians Torás, Barés, Muras, Urupás and Araras dwelt the region. The hydrographic basin of the Aripuãna has 146.300 square kilometers located in the state of Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Rondônia, integrating the basin of the Madeira River and the Southeastern region of the Amazon Basin.
The proposal
The project has the idea of creating and implementing a private park according to the international patterns of the dark sky reserves, to receive the different people of ecotourism, adventure tourism, researchers, wild animals observers, holistic therapy, other professionals in the area and nature lovers from the Amazon Rainforest. The main goal is to create a sustainable site where many forms of entertainment and knowledge from astronomical, environmental, sociocultural and economic areas can be found related to main ideals of the proposal: Ecotourism, Nature and Sustainable Development. The area is bathed by the right margin of the Roosevelt River and counts on a hidrografic area formed by rivers and perennial and non perennial bayous, belonging to the Amazonian biome. It is located in the phytoecological region called “Floresta Tropical Aberta” (Open Rainforest), alluvial subregion of the Amazon, the main characteristic is that canopies do not touch each other, allowing the growth of the shrubby extracts in closed forest environments. It is different from the dense forest because of the palm tree population and the understory floristic structure and composition, which being more open gets more luminous radiation.
PROSPECTION
The project is open for external capital prospection for implementation of the business in three initial possibilities (2016/2017): voluntary credits acquisition for the construction of the complex, foreign investment for infrastructure, engineering and observatory equipment, and only in these possibilities a partnership and operationalization agreement will be signed. All areas of the tourism complex will be allowed to receive external capital resources through concessions, reminding that each investor can acquire up to 40% of the area, but cannot cumulate more than one ecozone. The opportunity to compensate inevitable emissions, reducing the impact of the company on the environment, offers access from the companies to the responsible marketing opportunities, while it helps to finance projects that weren't practicable before. The atmosphere doesn't care where GEE is emitted or where its emission is avoided. All that matters in the fight against climate change is reducing the total quantity of emissions through efficiently sustainable practices through adaptations based on night ecosystems. To add value means to offer additional products and services, different from competitors and attracting the target market. To offer something that competitors do not offer is not enough. It is necessary that this “something” is recognized by the client as an competitive advantage and raise its satisfaction level for the service provided. In the “THEMATIC PARKS IN BRAZIL” segment, the main product is the DARK SKY proposal. However, additional activities will be implemented, seeking to add more value to its main activity and to diversify the mix of products and services offered by the program. In Brazil there are no Dark Sky Parks, and in South America there is only one, located in Chile. In the JUNGLE HOTELS -LODGE segment, the main product is the Dark Sky Layout within the forest, different from those in the margins of rivers, traditional and non-thematic. In the PLANETARIUMS AND OBSERVATORIES segment, the main product is the location of the sites within the Amazon forest, since there is no similar project in Brazil and neither in the state of Amazonas for public or private Planetariums and Observatories. In the LOGGING AND NON-LOGGING ACTIVITIES MANAGEMENT segment, there is a wide productive chain in the region, however, the sustainable use of the forest project distinguishes itself from the rest because of its certifications and badges of its products and services.
