As many of you
have already been reading the online articles regarding the ban on Tiger
Tourism, I thought I would give a better explanation of what is happening.
Banning tourism
in core areas of tiger reserves helps increase tiger population. Reduced
human access should lead to more intact wildlife habitats. Well, that’s
what activists like me say. However, if its tourism is banned Indian government tourism
revenue will be affected.
Wildlife Tourism started in India by middle
of 1980s. There are 40 tiger reserves across the country, according to the
National Tiger Conservation Authority of India. Tiger reserves are set up
throughout India to provide a protected environment for animals still in
the wild. Resorts and villages were set up for tourists, local as well as
foreign, to see the tiger habitats and perhaps catch a glimpse of the big
cat.
Some states, such as Madhya Pradesh, with six tiger
reserves, will be hit hard by the ban on tiger tourism. Following the ban,
hundreds of tourists who were looking forward to staying in hotels within the
forests will have to cancel their plans and book other rooms outside of the
core areas. This way many hotels and resorts will be in great loss.
My point is why should tourism be permitted in
core areas? Whatever statistics may say, the fact remains that the tiger
population in the country has diminished,
if the ban remains in place, however, it is expected to have a significant
impact on the livelihoods of communities in and around the reserves whose
income depends on wildlife tourism.
Conservationists have argued that resorts and hotels have over-expanded in the
reserves, encroaching on the tigers’ habitat and have largely excluded local
people from most of the industry’s profits.
I worry that the large number of tourists visiting
tiger reserves may be disturbing their habitats. India has 41 tiger reserves.
The most visited among them Corbett, Kanha, Periyar, Ranthambore and
Bandhavgarh—attract 150,000-200,000 visitors each every year. A tiger task
force constituted in 2005 to review the management of tiger reserves had
recommended that “tourism activities should not be allowed in the core of the
national parks and the tiger reserves,” and that wildlife tourism need to be regulated.
Tourism in tiger reserves needs to be extremely well managed to ensure that the
direct impact on the habitats due to tourism is mitigated. The chain of command
as well as the management of tourism in tiger reserves has suffered from multiple
governing institutions as well as confusion in policy and regulations so far,”
the task force said in its report, adding, “Tourism can lead to further stress
on the tiger’s habitat.”
This Is the Reason -To
Stop Tourism in Core Areas of Tiger Reserves
How will you feel if all
of a sudden a group of people barge into your house and start looking at what
you are doing? To add to this unpleasant situation, they start talking in loud
decibels and throw things here and there and after some time they leave. If
this continues for a few days won’t you feel irritated? This is what is
happening to the wild animals and it’s leading to a change in their psychology,
behaviour and their habitats are getting destroyed. Just like a disturbed human
being the animals who are disturbed spend very little time for their normal
activities and they are on the constant run to avoid being spotted by the
tourists. This may lead to several problems like their migration to less favourable
feeding grounds, hampering their mating cycle and improper care of the young
ones by the scared mothers. This can further lead to dire results for the
entire population of the species. To make the matters worse, the tourists are
very interested in watching the behaviour of the mother around her young ones.
The other dangers can be due to increased dependencies of some animals on the
tourists for their food.
Banning
tourism in India’s tiger reserves will prevent tigers from becoming
extinct.
However, so far, the
tourist industry and international conservation groups have failed to provide any solutions of their own that have led to any measurable successes.
In the past ten years, despite donations to tiger conservation projects totalling over $41-million
and the hundreds of millions of dollars earned in tourist revenue, India’s tiger
population has more than halved and their numbers continue to decline at an
alarming rate.
Ultimately, however, like the mountain gorilla, the future of the tiger almost
certainly lies in the tourist dollar. But for conservation to be effective
it will need government commitment and a willingness to support the only people
that can make a real difference – the thousands-strong army of
conservationists-in-waiting living around all of India’s tiger reserves,
willing to make a difference. Ultimately, it is they – the villagers and
communities – who can save the tiger, if
only they were given the chance.
Be respectful when you go to a wildlife sanctuary.
Many tourists demand to be let into core areas that are the only refuge of
animals. Don’t bring music, plastic and cigarettes. Even now wildlife parks tie
goats so that tourists can see tigers killing them.
Tourist money supports trades that profit from
animal suffering. Why don’t you enjoy nature and the culture of the places you
visit without taking part in activities that harm animals?
The way the safaris were run
there was no peace and quiet for the animals. There was constant noise and
human activity. We should let animals live in peace. Tourists also cause many
problems for the local environment; wildlife parks are filled with
litter from overuse. Tourists also use cars or coaches to travel to these
locations and within the area. This increases the amount of pollution in the
air. Animals get more street by human presents is a fact.
The main impact that humans have on
animals when it comes to interfering is changing their habitat. That can
happens in many of ways, one is to make the environment friendlier to
humans like putting in walking or driving roads. This is bad, because if
many humans walk on the road the animals will move away to be left alone,
then the new road have to be made to get to then animals.
The problem when not biding walking
tracks is that the tourist will walk to the animals the way they can, so
it can be the fast or the one that everyone else walks. It will still be a
big impact ether way, because if people walk their oven way more of
the habitat will be affected. But with walking tracks normal paths for the
animals can be cut off. The effect that new drive roads can have is that
people can get to the animals easier. That will give higher speed on the cars
and buses, more road kills and more contamination of gases from the cars.
It will also give a higher pressure on the
location that it can handle more people, like car parks and trash caring. The biggest
problem when people are coming in to the animal’s habitat is that they want to go
beyond the barriers. So the fact, that in national parks the guides are not well paid, so
they will break the law of the park if the visitor bribes them with money. This often happens so the tourist can go closer to the animals and that disturbs the
animals more. The way to stop this is to pay the guides more and educate them
so they know why it is bad for the animals. Even draw the parallel to that if
the animals get disturb too much they might move away and the guide can loss
their small income.
The tiger is dying
because of two centuries of crime, greed, political apathy and corruption.
Tigers face their greatest ever risk of extermination at the time of the
weakest ever commitment to their survival. The decision to end tiger tourism
was evidence of calamitous failure.