Tourism development and environmental protection are intertwined processes. Protected areas have been established to both promote nature-based tourism as well as control the environmental impacts of tourism development. Therefore, tourism has been a force to motivate the creation of protected areas in several developing countries. This article examines the roles of governments, and local and external actors in the policymaking process of establishing protected areas, using as a case study the establishment of environmentally protected areas in the state of Bahia, Brazil.