Hi

Your views are right and we can only hope that the forest officials adopt better forest management systems. But when one is exposed to the facts and understand the problems faced by them, we begin to believe that this is a distant dream.

Am jotting my views in bold to the views raised by you.


One of the primary roles of the forest department is in protection. They can't abdicate it.(True but the fact is that they are ill equipped with resources, manpower and technology to handle it.)

Tourism cannot be a solution to the lack of patrolling and protecting our natural resources. Look at it from their point of view, they lack sufficient manpower and financial support to implement better and efficient methods. Weather we like it or not wildlife tourism will only flourish, so is there a better way to engage wildlife tourism providers in pitching in their bit to conservation.

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. This is a tough one and its implementation looks beyond practical. I happened to speak to a guard on one of my trips to Nagarhole and he mentioned that they sometimes go without salary for months; their pays are pathetic and his list of grievances was long.

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. Its sad and frustrating to see misbehaving tourists coupled with the lack of knowledge on how to behave in the wild. People who are passionate about wildlife should step in and join hands with the forest department in implementing better and efficient ways to deal with this nuisance.