Authors: Anusha Chaudhary and Nitya Satheesh

This is the second article of our two-part series called “Ecotourism”.

The highlights are:

  • The Supreme Court of India imposed a temporary ban on wildlife tourism in the core of tiger reserves between July – October in 2012. 
  • The Court’s temporary ban enforced states to notify buffer zones for tiger reserves and establish standards of allowable growth and best practices for tourism. 
  • The temporary ban fuelled the polarized debate on the pros and cons of tourism with respect to wildlife and the local communities.
  • MoEFCC devised new guidelines for tiger tourism focusing on the regulation of conservation, community benefits and infrastructure development around the reserves.

Wildlife tourism is a powerful sector that can play an important role in boosting local economies and creating livelihood opportunities for local communities. When properly implemented, nature-based tourism can also significantly aid biodiversity conservation. In India, wildlife tourism began to gain popularity because of the country’s rich biological heritage and increasing disposable incomes. However, it started to expand at an alarmingly unsustainable rate. This has led to problems such as environmental damage, land grabbing by private hands for infrastructure construction, interference with wildlife movement and minimal benefits to the local communities, among others.  

The unchecked and highly unregulated growth of this sector came to a sudden halt when the Supreme Court of India issued an interim order banning tourism in core areas of all tiger reserves between July to October 2012. The core areas have the legal status of a national park/ reserve/sanctuary whereas the buffer is the area around their periphery with the mix of forest and non-forest managed for their multiple uses. The main reason for this temporary ban was to enforce states to notify buffer zones for tiger reserves and organize standards of permissible growth and best practices for tourism. 

Scientists from the Centre for Wildlife Studies and Wildlife Conservation Society – India published a commentary on the assessment of the Court’s verdict on wildlife tourism. This ban intensified the ongoing polarized debate on tourism benefits to wildlife and local communities. The debate was fueled by a report on the effects of wildlife tourism on the Corbett Tiger Reserve. It highlighted that the poorly managed tourism in the park had damaged crucial habitat and choked key tiger and elephant corridors. While tourism in reserves had provided economic benefits and fostered conservation consciousness, industries were exploiting resources around reserves increasing pressure on vulnerable species.

Responding to the Court’s order, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) devised new guidelines for tourism in tiger reserves. The new guidelines permitted regulated, low-impact tourism in no more than a fifth of a reserve’s main tiger habitat while also pushing for benefits to local communities and conservation. The guidelines also prohibited the building of any new infrastructure in certain areas. The MoEFCC’s updated policy had failed to address the issue of infrastructure development along reserve borders or guarantee effective implementation.  

The ban enforced by the Supreme Court was lifted in October 2012 but it is unclear if the warning has yielded any results.  A study published in 2018 by Puri et al. had intensely evaluated the trends in ecotourism in India. They concluded that nature-based tourism practices and research continued to grow in India but guidelines were not being followed properly. Thus, there is still room for improvement for sustainable tourism practices in India with imposition of strict policies and rules. 

Original article: Tourism turf wars: debating the benefits and costs of wildlife tourism in India – Prerna Bindra, Krithi K. Karanth – Oryx, 2013.

You can access the original article here.