What do we know about ecotourism routes in Azerbaijan?
The Globalized World Integration Public Union is implementing the project “Monitoring of Caspian coasts and other water bodies in Baku and regions” with the financial support of the State Support Agency for Non-Governmental Organizations of the Republic of Azerbaijan. This article is presented as part of the project.
In Azerbaijan, ecotourism is increasingly becoming one of the most attractive and promising tourism destinations. Favorable nature, rich fauna and flora, rivers, lakes and other water resources of our territories freed from occupation increase the attractiveness of our country from the point of view of ecotourism. It is enough that these resources are protected with care and optimally presented to our society, local and foreign tourists for the purpose of ecotourism development.In recent times, supporting the development of ecotourism as one of the main types of tourism is one of the priority activities of the State Tourism Agency. According to the information provided to our website by the agency, the rich nature of our country, biodiversity opportunities, climatic conditions create a wide potential for the development of ecotourism. In order to realize this potential, the project of creating mountain hiking routes was initially implemented by the Azerbaijan Tourism Bureau under the State Tourism Agency, and 15 mountain hiking routes were marked with mountain trails.
The degree of difficulty of the selected routes was assessed as easy and medium.
The routes are suitable for use by anyone with moderate fitness and no serious physical problems. In addition to the physical marking of mountain trails, GPS (Global Positioning System) records of all routes, maps and other necessary information are placed in the relevant section of the “azerbaijan.travel” website.Marked routes are relatively divided into North, North-West and West routes.
Also, the State Tourism Agency plans to evaluate and design mountain hiking routes in 2023 along the southern tourism corridor, including in Nakhchivan and Karabakh regions, as well as between Basgal and Lahic reserves, Gadabay and Tovuz regions.In addition, there are opportunities for bird watching and ornithological tourism in the area of ”Beshbarmag Mountain” State Historical-Cultural and Nature Reserve, Shirvan, Kyzylagac, Hirkan and Aggol National Parks, Mahmudchala and Varvara lakes. The development and promotion of ornithological tourism, which is one of the attractive types of ecotourism, has been identified as one of the priority areas of the Azerbaijan Tourism Bureau.