Click to play videoNew Delhi: Gas guzzling jeeps, noisy tourists hungry for that one glimpse of the tiger. There is an unprecedented pressure on tiger reserves across the country. And that's the reason why a PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court of India, asking for the core zone of tiger reserves to be freed of all human activity, and moved to the buffer zone.
But the wildlife tourism lobby is crying foul, arguing that tourists must be allowed to go deep into the breeding areas, and that this is good for the national animal
Wildlife conservationist Belinda Wright said, "I believe if wildlife tourism is banned from all tiger habitats in Madhya Pradesh, then this would be a disaster for Indian tiger conservation measures and tiger conservation in particular. The statistics show that wherever there are high densities of tourism there are also high densities of wild tigers and out of these only a percentage of them parks are only open to tourism."
The conglomerate from Travel Operators for Tigers, along with some wildlife enthusiasts presented scientific data to show how tourism in the breeding areas of the tiger is good. However, tribals should be evicted from these core zones. Those presenting this data were incidentally owners of tourist resorts in Madhya Pradesh.
Program Director, WWF India Sejal Worah said, "It's very hard to find examples of good tourism practices. Certainly whatever is happening in and around national parks is bad tourism."
Is there a conflict of interest - when resort owners claim that tourism is good for tigers and not local people? And can the same resort owners play the communities card when they themselves have lobbied for eviction of the same tribals from the forest? Ban or no ban, the need of the hour is for the wildlife tourism lobby to introspect on what is going wrong with the way tourism is practiced in tiger areas.
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