Hi Hemant,

Please introduce yourself in the Who's who section so that we can know you better.

Wildlife tourism or ecotourism as it is called, is projected as a panacea for our problems. Unfortunately, it is not.

One of the primary roles of the forest department is in protection. They can't abdicate it. Tourism cannot be a solution to the lack of patrolling and protecting our natural resources.

As far as employment of the local people is concerned, it is better that the eligible ones be directly recruited by the forest department for the patrolling duties, rather than depending upon resorts to provide employment. We have seen that local population gets very little. It is ofcourse a different matter if you consider that most of the so called local people are settlers from outside. Anyway, that is a different point of discussion.

Every forest has got a carrying capacity. Beyond that it has deleterious effects. Look at many of our National Parks, and you can see the impact of tourism.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi