Ecotourism is responsible tourism and in tune with the ethos of living in harmony with nature
The Indian landscape is endowed with diversified scenic beauty having unmatched natural features ranging from hot desert to cold deserts to verdant tropical and temperate forests to sea beaches andglaciers, all with rich in flora and fauna. In the modern life style, relaxation in the midst of scenic landscape is every global citizen’s dream.
Many European countries with historical monuments and features have exploited the business potentials of their landscape and making tourism as their major source of revenue. More than 10 per cent of the world’s GDP and seven per cent of the world’s total exports come from tourism. The industry is worth over $1.1 trillion. The money earned from expenditures by foreigners is a key driver of economic development and important source of earning foreign exchange. In 2018 France led the world with 89.4 million tourists’ footfalls followed by Spain and the USA.
Among Asian countries Thailand had 38.2 million footfalls. India had in 2018 received a little more than 17 million tourists with an annual growth rate of about 5 percent and is poised to leapfrog. However, tourism has a negative streak of damaging the environment and polluting land and water resources and due to climatic vagaries being notices all over the world there is more emphasis on promoting ecotourism all over the world.
Ecotourism is responsible tourism and in tune with the ethos of living in harmony with nature. It is therefore, based on learning and enjoying the varied components of ecosystem and promoting the pristine environmental attributes of an area. Ecotourism is deeply entrenched with local culture and a great source of community livelihood. It is a win-win situation for the tourists as well as the local people and the environment. The global ecotourism market is valued at $181 billion in 2019 and is likely to grow to $350 billion in 2027. The question resource managers are asking whether India is prepared to give a big lift to ecotourism not merely on policy front but concrete results in terms of revenue generated, conservation of forests and livelihood created. It creates employment and jobs but not at the cost of environment. With India’s rising middle class the potential of earning from ecotourism is huge provided well thought out planning is done for creating the infrastructure.
Around 24 percent of our landmass is under forests and tree cover out of which around 4.8 million hectares is covered by 103 National parks and 544 wild life sanctuaries. We have innumerable scenic spots integrated in the overall landscape of the country. In order to exploit the multifaceted potentials of ecotourism it is essential to make ecotourism a key feature of forest conservation strategy. Let us examine some of these aspects in relations to some of the States who had great potential to set an example.
In terms of ecotourism Madhya Pradesh and some other Tiger states are noticed by people quite often in national media but some of the best features in North Eastern states like Tripura had remained neglected and under exploited. Indian landscape has to offer much more than tigers and elephants. In Tripura the Clouded Leopard National Park, Bison National Park, Rubber estates, Trishna Wildlife Sanctuary, Elephant Reserve, Hornbill Conservation Reserve combined with scenic undulating geography and other cultural features like Ujjayanta Palace (an Indo-Saracenic structure made in 1901), Unakoti rock temple andChabimura rock carvings are an ideal place to enjoy the serenity of the environment.
Chabimura is famous for its panels of rock carvings on the steep mountain wall on the bank of Gomati. These are 15 to 16 centuries carvings.Home to the largest bas relief sculptures in India, Unakoti is famous for its massive stone and rock-cut sculptures dedicated to Lord Shiva that have been carved out from the hillside during 11th century. The Heritage Park in Agartala is of recent making and it depicts the geographic features of Tripura. There are several beautiful parks with water bodies all over Tripura which can be developed as ecotourism destinations. The bamboo and wooden handicrafts of Tripura are very popular outside. The tourist flow in Tripura has been picking up slowly. During 2018-19, total 5, 29,879 tourists visited Tripura including 1, 12,955 foreign tourists.However, though the footfall is increasing steadily during the last three years it is nowhere near its vast untapped economic and ecological potential.
The state is one of the first in the country to have announced the Ecotourism policy in the year 2004 but nothing substantial was done thereafter to promote the ecotourism in terms of infrastructure. Excellent physical infrastructure in place, like an International swanky airport, good rail connections and better roads have given the state’s tourism potential a big boost. In the last few years as Agartala has emerged as one of the fastest developing statecapitals in the North Eastern part of the country. Now the time is ripe for the State Government to issue detailed guidelines for the ecotourism activities inside and outside the forest areas and also to create an independent body to manage the ecotourism in the state integrating the concept with local livelihoods, conservation and culture. The Joint Forest Management (JFM) has been quite successful in Tripura and elsewhere in the country in promoting forest-based livelihoods; the government must empower these JFM committees to oversee the ecotourism and make the people real stakeholders. There are 18 tribes in the state, their food items and culture should be part of any tourist resorts and destination. For achieving success,the local people especially women should be trained in handling the tourist, preparing hygienic food and maintaining sanitation all around because it is the clean drinking water, clean toilets and beds are the basic features which attracts the people to a destination. A well-planned ecotourism shall also garner revenue for the Government and it is necessary that business sense is enthused in our national forest conservation programmes and policies for which the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change must act in a proactive manner to encash the scenic beauty of our landscapes.
(The writer is Chairman of Centre for Resource Management and Environment. The views expressed are personal.)
