Brazilian Trail Network Association
The Brazilian Trail Network Association
In Brazil, the Brazilian Trail Network Association (Trails Network/Rede Trilhas in Portuguese) implements the long-distance trails, its affiliated trails, and partners. The Trails Network is a maturing process of more than 20 years of implementing trails, training trips, congresses, meetings, and technical visits to more than 50 long-distance trails in the world. It is a constant process of designing and adapting to the experiences of trails that are already implemented, such as the Transcarioca Trail and other global cases, to create a national system and a model of trails that are pleasant, but also generate employment and income in the surroundings and, above all, function as conservation tools.
As examples from other countries demonstrate, projects of this scale depend less on money than on significant local participation and support, with shared governance between institutions and civil society and a strong sense of belonging. Long-distance trails tend to succeed when they are planned from the bottom up by society, so that recognition of their successes is not exclusive to one person, institution, government, or a select group that has no connection with those who managed and marked the way at the cost of their own sweat.
In order to obtain similar recreation, conservation, and income generation benefits in Brazil, the Brazilian Trail Network Association is working to strengthen trails in our country, merging what is most successful in the North American and European models. In this context, each national long-course trail, such as the Oiapoque x Barra do Chuí Trail, will be the result of the addition of a series of regional trails in which the end of one coincides with the beginning of the next.
On October 19, 2018, an initiative that had been passionately carried out by a group of volunteers and workers from protected areas all over Brazil finally received its birth certificate. On that date, the Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Tourism, and the President of ICMBio signed the Joint Ordinance MMA/MTur 407, which creates the National Network of Long Distance Trails and Connectivity. About a year later, on August 16, 2019, during the ABETA Summit in Ilhabela, the Brazilian Trail Network Association was created, a group of volunteers dedicated to implementing, maintaining, and supporting the Government in the management of Brazilian trails.
http://www.redetrilhas.org.br/w3/index.php/rede-trilhas/quem-somos
The trails
Today, the Brazilian Trail Network has more than 120 trails in different stages of implementation in more than 300 municipalities in 25 of the 27 federative units in the country and in all our biomes. We have more than 5,500 km of trails implemented and we expect another 20,500 km in the coming years. The first trails implemented in the Trails Network were the Transcarioca Trail, which is a 183 km trail that crosses the City of Rio de Janeiro from west to east, and the Serra do Mar Paths, which have 64 km, covering the Serra dos Órgãos National Park and APA of Petrópolis in Rio de Janeiro, both in the Atlantic Forest. In the Cerrado, we have the Caminhos dos Goyazes National Trail, which is formed by regional trails implemented or in advanced stages of implementation, such as the Cora Coralina Trail, the Central Plateau Trails, the Veadeiros Trails, among others.
In the Amazon Region we have incredible trails, such as the Chico Mendes Trail, in Acre, the Caminhos do Rio Negro, in Amazonas, and, in Pará, the Marajó Trails, the Guarumã Trail, and the Atlantic Amazon Trail, whose 350 km will connect the Metropolitan Region of Belém on the border with Maranhão and which will eventually connect to the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park Crossing.
The northeast coast is very developed for tourism, but we have the great challenge of developing the Caatinga, in its interior. To help with this development, the Caminhos das Ararunas is in the final stage of implementation, which is a 110 km trail that crosses the Seridó Paraibano. In the Northeast there are more trails such as the Chã Preta Trail, the Serra do Retiro Trail, the São Francisco River Canyons Trail, the Ubajara Trail, etc. In the Southeast, in an advanced stage of implementation, we have the Transmantiqueira Trail, which crosses the Serra da Mantiqueira from west to east, with a course of 1,200 km in length, crossing more than 40 municipalities in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro and promoting the integration of more than 30 Conservation Units. Another long trail of more than 1,000 km also in the Southeast is the Transespinhaço Trail, in Minas Gerais, which runs through Serra do Espinhaço from south to north.
In the south of the country we also have many trails, such as the Rota dos Pioneiros, which is the largest water trail in Brazil with more than 400 km in length along the Paraná River. Another one in an advanced state of implementation is the Caminho das Araucárias, which is a trail that goes along the southern canyons, starting in the Aparados da Serra National Park in Rio Grande do Sul and ending 600 km later in the São Joaquim National Park in Santa Catarina. Other outstanding trails in the southern region are the Caminho da Baleia Franca, the Caminho da Ilha de Santa Catarina, the Caminho do Corredor Ecológico da Quarta Colônia, the Cassino x Barra do Chuí Crossing, among others. Another highlight for a trail in the south of the country that is in the initial phase of implementation is the Caminho do Pampa, which crosses this biome from Santana do Livramento and has the potential to advance to Uruguay. The Trails Network also has several important pilgrimage paths such as the Caminho da Fé, which is considered the Brazilian Way of Santiago de Compostela, and the recently implemented Caminho de Graças & Prosas. We also have trails totally focused on the bicycle mode, such as the Rota das Transições na Serra da Mantiqueira and the Maria Fumaça Green Trail, which is a trail superimposed on the trace of an old railway line located between Serra do Espinhaço and the hinterland of Minas Gerais; this railway track unites history and nature along its route of about 100 kilometers.
It is very difficult to summarize all the trails in the Trails Network, as each of the more than 120 trails has very different characteristics, but all of them are working in synergy so that we can promote the interconnection between them in order to form the great network that will cross Brazil from north to south and from east to west, passing through all biomes and interconnecting all conservation units and relevant natural areas in our country.
Governance
The Trails Network has a government governance body (MMA, ICMBio, MTur, Embratur, and state, municipal tourism and environment departments and other public institutions) and another for civil society; both work together to further our goals.
We work in a network formed from the bottom up, in which each trail is a pillar that forms the whole. We encourage participatory processes, the inclusion and pluralism of people, communities, groups, and institutions, because in this way results are amplified in the face of the rich convergence of experiences and multiple diversities in favor of a common objective.
At the local/regional level, each track has its own governance and strategy for generating employment and income and, ideally, will have its governance structure formed by a group of participants that will involve volunteers, small entrepreneurs, providers, and public agents. At the national level, the role of the board is to coordinate the initiatives so that they are complementary and so that they do not compete with each other, seeking their coordination so that they are physically connected, distributing information, promoting the sharing of knowledge, training and joint training, making interlocution with Ministries and other national institutions, raising funds of interest for all trails, and promoting the dissemination of the Trails Network and individual trails as a tourist product both in Brazil and abroad.
We work to connect people, forming a large network of collaborators and strengthening volunteering in Brazil as a way of promoting cooperativism and the exercise of citizenship. As we work in a network and in a decentralized way, it is difficult to specify the number of volunteers who are participating, but I estimate that we have thousands of volunteers working directly on the implementation of these trails and, at least, ten thousand indirectly.
Goals
The Brazilian Trail Network Association works to engage public entities and organized civil society in the consolidation of public policies for the construction of infrastructure for multimodal trails (walking, cycling, rowing, horseback riding, trail running, among other non-motorized modes of travel) for the development of sustainable development of our Brazil, creating a new economy with preserved natural areas.
We are working to connect all Conservation Units (UCs) and other relevant natural areas in Brazil with trails inserted in corridors of native vegetation, enabling the migration of fauna, improving forest, environmental, and biodiversity quality, influencing the climate, and in this way developing Brazilian trails as equipment for territorial development, with emphasis on nature conservation and environmental education, generating employment and income, and creating opportunities for recreation and new forms of non-motorized travel.
We want a new type of travel, with slow and continuous movement, without concentration of earnings in a single location, but along major axes, helping to establish small owners and businesses on the ground, preventing rural evasion and mitigating the swelling of urban centers. We also want to rescue the history of old ways of traveling and old ways such as tropeiros routes, colonial roads, pioneer trails, and even old deactivated railways. Finally, we want to enhance and improve the landscape and road infrastructure of the Pilgrim Routes.
The transformation also takes place in people's lives, by taking these protected areas to the door of people's homes and their shops through the trails, functioning as an extension of parks and other areas intended for leisure. The transformation takes place in the cognitive and popular imagination by making biodiversity visible through signage and environmental interpretation. What is intended to change is the relationship of people with the natural environment, both the users of the trails and the population that lives along them.
We want Brazil to reach, in a sustainable and socially fair way, its potential for tourism in contact with nature, attracting and educating the different audiences existing in the country. Transform our nature, our biomes, our culture, our religiosity, and our native peoples into assets that, through the Long Course Trails as a tool for integrated economic development based on these assets, being the trails the connectors and propagators of this integration, monetizing the landscapes, natural and cultural diversity.
The Trails Network primarily serves those who take the local initiative to plan, implement, or maintain local, regional, and national trails throughout the country. The Trails Network welcomes, gathers, systematizes, and gives cohesion to Brazilian trails, connecting people and leveling knowledge.
Acknowledgments
In its brief existence, the Brazilian Trail Network and its formative trails have been widely recognized. In this sense, they have already received some awards and recognitions of national and international relevance:
In 2016, the Transcarioca Trail, the first Trail of the Trilhas Network, received the Gold Carabiner, the highest award from the Brazilian Mountaineering and Climbing Confederation. Also this year, Transcarioca was included in the UN's Green Passport program. In 2018, the first year of existence of the National Tourism Award, granted by the Ministry of the Environment, Trails Network was chosen as one of the winners. The following year, 2019, the Caminho de Cora Coralina, part of the Trails Network, also won the national tourism award. Also in 2019, the Transcarioca Trail was elected by this prestigious magazine as one of the 25 best trails in the world. In the same year, the Transcarioca Trail was appointed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as one of the best examples of long-distance trails in the world and a director of the Brazilian Trail Network was chosen president of the IUCN Long-Distance Trail Specialist Group.
In 2021, the Brazilian Trail Network and its formative trails (Caminhos da Flona, Trilha Transcarioca and Travessias do Cipó/Trilha Transespinhaço) were chosen by Instituto Pesquisas Ecológicas (IPÊ) in cooperation with ICMBio, with four of the five best practices in Brazil in Volunteering in Public Use. The Caminhos do Planalto Central received the same award in the Management and Operationalization of Programs and Initiatives category.
The strength of the Trilhas Network's volunteer work was recognized by the Government in several areas. In 2016, the Transcarioca Trail was recognized as a heritage of Rio de Janeiro by Municipal Decree. In 2019, ICMBio published its trail signage manual in which it recognizes the trail signage adopted by Trails Network as the official one throughout Brazil. In 2018, the Brazilian Trails Network was included in the Conecta program of the Ministry of the Environment and in 2018 and 2020 the Trails Network became a national public policy through two joint ordinances of the Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Tourism, and Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade.
In 2018, the State of Rio Grande do Sul officially joined the Trails Network and in 2020 the State of Rio de Janeiro did the same. In 2021, the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District passed a district law creating the District Trail System, which recognizes the work of the Trails Network within that federative unit. At the moment, the states of Goiás and Paraná are debating the creation of laws similar to the DF. Today, Trails Network is present in more than 300 municipalities in all Brazilian states. The initiative is so successful that we are one of the founders of the Red Latino Americana de Sendeiros, which uses the same methodology as the Brazilian network and we have even translated our signaling manual into Spanish.
In its brief existence, Trails Network and its associated trails have already been reported more than 1,000 times in the national and international press, including articles on open and cable TV, in addition to the prestigious Lonely Planet guide. The social media of Trails Network already have more than 100,000 followers.
Awards:
2016: Inclusion of the Transcarioca Trail in the UN Green Passport.
2016: Golden Mosquetão Award 2016, conferred by the Brazilian Confederation of Mountaineering and Climbing.
2018: National Tourism Award for the Brazilian Trail Network.
2019: National Tourism Award for the Cora Coralina Way.
2019: Choice of the Transcarioca Trail as one of the 25 best in the world.
2019: Inclusion of the Transcarioca Trail as an example and choice of one of the directors of the network as chairman of the IUCN Long Distance Trail Specialist Group.
2021: Brasília Award: the new look of tourism for the Caminhos do Planalto Central.
2021: Choice of the Brazilian Trails Network and 4 of its training trails among the best environmental volunteering practices.
Upcoming Challenges
Today, we came out of nowhere to have a national public policy on trails, already adopted by several states and municipalities. We achieved the goals set at the beginning of the process: (1) create a culture of signaling and structuring trails; (2) develop and consolidate a "Trilhas do Brasil" brand; (3) create a Brazilian Trail Network, involving all spheres of government, private initiative and civil society, generating employment and income; (4) train multipliers and manualize procedures for implementing public use structures, standardizing them nationally. We implemented projects in a modular way so that small victories were obtained on the way, thus demonstrating that we were in the right direction, increasing the morale of the partners and pointing out mistakes and successes to be corrected or improved in the following phases.
However, there is still much to do in the next 5 years. While our network has barely reached 6,000 km, the American network has 600,000 km and the European network has more than 800,000 km. For this, however, it is essential to give strength and institutionality to the Trails Network, helping in training, promoting exchanges with other countries that already have their respective networks consolidated, participating in the movement that needs to think about the legislation on the subject, the form of implementation of the trails, how to plan them so that they also serve as a passage for fauna between core areas promoting genetic flow, and participating in the group that is planning its institutionalization and the measures that need to be taken so that this public equipment contributes significantly to national tourism, generating employment and income.
Given the size of the mission, despite the enormous strength of thousands of volunteers that Trails Network counts today, like the trails and successful national networks in other parts of the world, it becomes necessary to establish a small and efficient professional Executive Secretariat to support the Trails Network board, organize training workshops, raise funds with a view to financial sustainability, promote exchanges, disseminate good practices and manualize procedures, among other day-to-day tasks.
The following proposal is the result of consultations and technical visits by volunteers from the Brazilian Trail Network to executive secretariats of successful and self-sustainable trails such as Rota Vicentina, Lebanon Mountain Trail, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Bruce Trail, the Sendero de Chile, and the Tahoe Rim Trail.
Our website and our social media: Website: www.redetrilhas.org.br Facebook: @RedeBrasileiraDeTrilhas Instagram: @RedeBrasileiraDeTrilhas Twitter: @RedeTrilhas
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