What is the issue?
- Wildlife tourism has been slowly gaining ground in India as an effective tool for conservation.
- It has also increased government revenue and aided local communities earn a livelihood.
How has wildlife tourism helped local communities?
- Wildlife tourism is currently focused on a few protected areas and these areas are running at maximum capacity.
- Local populations being the largest beneficiary, wildlife tourism can potentially bring development to remotest areas.
- 75crore or 45% of the 166crore generated through wildlife tourism was found to go back to communities.
- Additionally, better road connectivity and other physical infrastructures such as electricity, health, education etc... sprout with development of tourism.
- Notably, villages focused on tourism had better income, health and education levels than the rest.
How has it benefited conservation efforts?
- The dependency of the locals on the forests was found to be significantly reduce with tourism due to other sources of revenue.
- Furthermore, their attitude towards wildlife conservation improved which is a win-win for conservation efforts.
- In the Tiger Reserves that were surveyed, the total revenue generated from entry fees alone was over Rs 19 crore annually.
- This was almost on par with the individual contributions of the state and central governments.
What is the best way forward?
- Exclusionary models of conservation is not feasible over a larger landscape outside the small isolated pockets.
- To take tiger conservation beyond the protected areas, we need to look at new, parallel and complementary models for conservation.
- Seeing ‘nature tourism’ as an effective solution rather than a threat makes prudent sense in this regard.
- Improving ‘program planning and waste disposal’ at tourism sites could potentially enhance benefits.
- While ecological damage due to tourism aided real-estate ventures is indeed a risk, strict vigil could keep it in check.
- Notably, the footprint of eco-tourism is much lighter than other developmental initiatives.
Source: Business Standard
