Scholarly record

ECOTOURISM AT THE VOLCANIC GEOMORPHOHYDROSITE MOHOS PEAT BOG, ROMANIA

Lóránt Bálint-Bálint

Abstract

In the last decades the ecotourism become ever so popular in the protected natural areas. This form of tourism is more and more used as a new science which can reflect the new coordinates and trends for the development of the tourism industry on a global scale. In the beginning it was applied only in the natural protected areas, and step by step its area of influence got extended over the other major forms of tourism as well. By the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century the ecotourism is gradually gaining bigger importance on a global level, with the main focus on preserving and marketing the inherited natural and historic-cultural resources within a region [5]. The Ciomadu volcanic cone is the youngest geological formation of the Harghita Mountains, and the most valuable from a scientific, economic touristic and attraction wise. It is the most known and researched within the territory of the Harghita Mountains. It has two craters, and one of them is the Mohos Peat Bog with 15 water meshes and several ice age relics; and the other crater houses the Saint Ana Volcanic Crater Lake, the unique volcanic lake in Romania, and both represent on the most important sites in Romania. The morphological evolution of the volcanic cones, plateaus, valleys, volcanic craters, of the mofettas and mineral water springs, allowed us from a morphological point of view to separate three subunits of geomorphosites within the Harghita Mountains: volcanic geomorphosites, geomorphohydrosites and hydrogeomorphosites. The geomorphohydrosites are represented by the lakes and peat bogs, whose morphology was created during the eruptive of effusive cycles; as morphological units like craters; and later these craters were filled with waters from precipitations forming the volcanic crater lakes and one by eutrophication became a peat bog [10]. After a thorough investigation of the related methodology for evaluating these geomorphosites according to several authors, we concluded that the Pralong method completed by [1], [3], [9], [10] and [15] which we adapted to volcanic geomorphosites is the most appropriate one for our current evaluation. besides the obvious general value of the geomorphosite it also emphasizes its touristic value. To illustrate the means of classification we will present an evaluation chart for the volcanic geomorphosite Mohos Peat Bog, and for calculating the total value (VT) of the geomorphosite we sum up its Structural Value (Vst) and its Functional Value (Vfn) and then we subtract from this sum the restrictive value (Vr) after the following formula [10]: VT = Vst + Vfn ? Vr The Mohos Peat Bog is the best model for practicing ecotourism, alongside its touristic marketing in concordance with a sustainable development of an area within the Harghita Mountains. It shows a ?quality? tourism character, educational tourism, and scientific tourism against the mass tourism from the Saint Ana Lake, at least by the end of 2018, when swimming was prohibited in the lake.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/5.1/s20.026

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