This article doesn’t mention South America but its a good summary of ecotourism issues in Australia and New Zealand. The same problems applies to ecotourism in South America:

The overarching question, however, is whether the practice of ecotourism works as well as the theory. Ecotourism not only needs to provide a good holiday and educate visitors, it also has to work as a business, be community aware and environmentally sustainable.

It’s a big ask, and some industry observers aren’t sure that it’s successful. Dr Robert Gale, from the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of NSW, says that in one sense ecotourism is something everyone wants to have “because it seems like a win-win situation: a nice alliance of environmental management practices with appropriate development and business sustainability. On the other hand, every successful enterprise wants to grow and get bigger, so the difficulty for ecotourism operators is knowing at what point they should stop trying to expand.

“Ecotourism is supposed to be zero environmental impact, but … there’s an argument that it could be the thin end of the wedge - that once you find an attraction and people want to come then you’re really opening up an area for mass-marketing tourism. So all tourism needs to be sustainable. It’s not enough to have just one branch of tourism that is sustainable and not focus on all the rest.”

Areas where ecotourism is not proving sustainable, he says, include wildlife viewing. He singles out some whale-watching and polar bear tours as examples of tourism where people may get too close to the animals. Gale believes the best way forward is to “limit ecotourism activities to designated parts of parks and natural protected areas and to certify both the operators and the ecotourists.