Estudio de los servicios ecosistémicos: regulación y culturales, en el bosque El Corazón del cantón Pallatanga, provincia de Chimborazo para fomento de la actividad ecoturística.

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to study the ecosystem services: regulation and cultural services in El Corazón forest, Pallatanga canton, in order to promote ecotourism activities; for the elaboration of the environmental component, a previous visit was made in which interviews with open questions were applied to the forest administrator, while, for the identification of the ecosystem services present in the territory, ten field trips were made in which the non-probabilistic method was applied through the technique of key informants which covered three segments: The information obtained and validated was transferred to adapted into the forest reality, for the valuation of the services, two moments are carried out, the first one shows the comparisons of the perceptions that people have about the services provided by the forest, both to the community and the canton, Finally, a proposal is made for the promotion of ecotourism activities in the area, creating SWOT matrix, a tree of problems that later becomes a tree of solutions, with which a logical framework matrix is filled out and possible sources of financing are suggested. Twelve total elements were identified, of which eight are ecosystem services of regulation: clean air, microclimates, micro-ecosystems, humidity, soil erosion, natural disaster prevention, carbon storage, and pollination; on the other hand, four correspond to cultural services, which are: site identity, flora and fauna sighting, tourism, and scenic beauty, all can be exploited through a sustainable ecotourism activity.