Adventure Tourism in the Darien Inspired a Social Media Firestorm: and Misinformation

Last week a German tourism company that offers $4000 USD tours of the Darien Gap —the most dangerous migration corridor in the Americas— elicited a firestorm of criticism.

Some journalists erroneously claimed that the company, which provides guides and helicopter evac in case of a medical emergency, was profiting from and exploiting migration, which has expanded radically in recent years and has claimed hundreds of lives.

In order to examine the dynamic further, we invited Jordan Stern, a photographer who has crossed the gap and long covered migration from various countries in South and Central America, to explain what he thought.

From his point of view, the programs say more about the criminalization of migration in general and the governments who have forced migrants into life-threatening situations than it does about the insensitivity of European tour companies.

But that’s not the say the dynamic isn’t without problems.

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