A new study documents both financial and other key benefits that wildlife tourism brings to Madhya Pradesh’s tiger reserves and some of the communities living around them.
A report, ‘The Value of Wildlife Tourism for Conservation and Communities’ was launched by Raghu Chundawat at an event in Delhi on Tuesday. The report records the results of a recent in depth study around four Tiger Reserves in Central India.
In the four Tiger Reserves, the team found that the total revenue generated from wildlife tourism’s entry fees alone was Rs 19.42 crore. This was more than the State Government’s contribution of Rs 18.76 crore to these Reserves. Central Assistance budget was Rs 21.24 crore (The total budget for these four Reserves in 2016-17 was Rs 40 crore) Dr Raghu Chundawat, the eminent tiger scientist who led the research team, points out that while successful, most Tiger Reserves in India are small and the tiger populations protected within their boundaries are not viable. “Exclusionary models of conservation are no longer feasible over a larger landscape,” he says. He believes that to build on the success of the Protected Areas and take tiger conservation beyond their boundaries, we need to look at new, parallel and complementary models for saving and restoring forests. “Our findings show that wildlife tourism can provide one way of doing this; with support and improved sustainable practices, tourism could provide a paradigm to spread benefit to tigers and people over a much broader area,” he added.