Sustainable Tourism Law

Sustainable Tourism in Argentina Belén Peña Cabrera I. ARGENTINA The territory of the Argentine Republic, with a mainland area of 2.780.400 km², is the eighth-largest country in the world, the second largest in South America, after Brazil, and the fourth in all America. 1 Its vast extension from North to South, from Jujuy to Tierra del Fuego, provides Argentina with the widest range of climate types and landscapes, ranging from arid deserts to freezing cold, from the highest mountains to plains and valleys, from steppe vegetation to tropical jungles and dense forests. This allows changes from cold to warm temperatures in the same time of the year, and from sports tourism such as ski to tourism focused on the sun and the beach, only requiring travelling a few hours. In Argentina, we can experience magnificent, breath-taking, astounding landscapes, wonderful places that will leave you speechless. For example, the Perito Moreno Glacier, the best known and most photographed block of ice of all the glaciers in the Glacier National Park, located 78 km from El Calafate, in the province of Santa Cruz. The Valdes Peninsula boasts of its spectacular nature, inhabited by sea lions and elephant seals, penguins, guanacos, a high diversity of birds, and, of course, the stars: the famous gigantic whales that arrive between May and December to mate and give birth, located 77 Km fromPuertoMadryn in the Province of Chubut. The Ischigualasto Provincial Park (located in San Juan) and the Talampaya National Park (located in La Rioja) are both important tourist and scientific attractions because of their geological and paleontological value. The Quebrada de Humahuaca is a beautiful mountain valley about 170 Km long, that presents a variety of colours and forms, located in the province of San Salvador de Jujuy, and the Iguazú National Park with its well-known Iguazú falls, with more than 270 waterfalls of up to 70 1 National Geographic Institute of the Argentine Republic.