Ecotourism in India:-
Ecotourism thus imbibes mainly education and interpretation of responsible tourism practices that in practice ensure environmental conservation, is sustainable tourism and looks after the welfare and concerns of local communities.
According to The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), adopting certain principles is necessary for those who are involved in managing ecotourism activities such that these goals are fulfilled. In this education of nature and natural phenomena are foremost as an ecotourism practice that can achieve the aims of environmental conservation and sustainability. There are however, certain other practices that form a compact of the total practice that ensures responsible ecotourism.
For example, TIES posits that managing ecotourism activities should aim to minimize the harmful psychological, behavioural, social and environmental impacts of tourism, build awareness, provide good experiences for tourists and raise their sensitivity to local issues, create financial benefits out of environmental conservation for both local people and the tourism industry, design and construct facilities whose harmful impacts on the environment are low, create partnerships with local communities by recognizing certain rights that could assist in achieving sustainable ecotourism, etc (TIES, 2017).
The Problem of Data
Tourism as a whole is a rapidly growing industry the world over, and within this nature tourism is among the most prominent and fastest growing segments. According to Filion et al. (1994), approximately 32 per cent of tourists to Australia and New Zealand are interested in natural elements such as scenery, and native plants and animals. In Africa the proportion of tourists preferring natural elements was significantly higher at 80 per cent. This figure was between 69 to 88 per cent in terms of European tourists to North America and between 50 to 79 per cent of tourists to Latin America. Over 100 million Americans are said to be interested in exploring wildlife.
According to statistics from the World Trade Organization (WTO) (2000), the total number of tourists globally is expected to reach 1.6 billion by 2020. The tourism industry is the largest employer in the world, creating directly and indirectly almost 200 million jobs, which is about 10 per cent of total global employment (Honey and Rome, 2000). However, in the case of ecotourism, given the definitions of ecotourism and the meanings associated with it, these as yet do not serve as functional definitions whereby statistics on ecotourism can be gathered. As yet no global institution exists with a mandate to gather data on ecotourism, and studies rely on data provided in other studies.
The Centre for Responsible Travel (CREST), a non-profit research institute based in Washington D.C. in the US, reported that global tourism grew by about 4.4 per cent in 2015. The total number of global tourists was 1,184 million in 2015 with CREST expecting growth in numbers to continue in the foreseeable future. They report that out of the 25 million people travelling from the US in 2014, those participating in sightseeing comprised 82 per cent, those travelling to small towns or the countryside comprised 46 per cent, cultural tourists comprised 33 per cent, while only 8 per cent comprised of people participating in ecotourism (CREST, 2016). This data cannot be called conclusive, as although ecotourism is a key component of the economic system in countries all over the world, data on ecotourism remains without institutions mandated to present data on ecotourism and much is relied also upon organizations that monitor ecotourism.
K.S. Bricker of the United Nations (UN) goes a step further, in saying that while sustainable ecotourism is an important segment in tourism that is a growing segment, what is lacking is primary research that can quantify the market globally. There is thus a lack of consistent data that can conclusively verify claims and action on ecotourism (Bricker, 2013). International bodies can seek data from organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) in terms of market and visitor data. A mandated statistical research framework is found wanting thus in the case of global ecotourism which can impact ecotourism as a sustainable economic activity.
A Policy Approach to Ecotourism in India
Ecotourism can provide formidable economic benefits which at the same instance require environmental conservation and the co-operation of local communities. As an essential part of economic development, it then assumes importance as a conservation strategy that requires overall sustainable development and forms a component of it at the same time.
Many developing countries all over the world are now adopting sustainable ecotourism as a prerogative and are now including it in their environmental conservation and economic development strategies. Although partially implemented in practice, the basic argument is similar to the lines of if heritage monuments can be protected such that tourists continue to marvel at their grandeur, why cannot ecotourism destinations be protected in a similar manner as well?
Ecotourism practices further impose as a statute the operation of responsible tourism practices as well. Sustainable ecotourism in this sense deals primarily with learning about and experiencing nature and natural phenomena along with the participation and with knowing about the economic and social development of local communities as well.
Sustainable ecotourism thus involves evolving a symbiotic relationship between tourists and the natural environment. This symbiosis can conserve the natural objects of study such that greater knowledge and intimacy could result in greater possibilities for conservation. However, although the science for this sort of pedagogical approach is present, what might be developing is the integration of this pedagogical approach in the case of policy. This sort of pedagogical approach for now exists largely as philosophical founding and a cohesive policy approach is still very nascent. Sustainable ecotourism needs to feature as a total social and economic activity that also brings forth the participation of local communities.
Many ecotourism hotspots exist in India such as in the Himalayan region, Kerala, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and many more.
Thenmala in Kerala is India’s first planned and certified ecotourism destination. Other than this there are many national parks and sanctuaries in India that act to cater to tourism and work towards environmental conservation at the same time (Eco India, 2008).
After witnessing the devastating effects of mass tourism in India on the natural environment, since the 1990s, efforts were made to make tourism more benevolent. Tourism was fronted under many heads such as ethnic tourism and adventure tourism to design tourism policies that could be more sustainable. Ecotourism in India came under one such type of niche tourism. The problem in India however, beyond national parks and sanctuaries, is whether ecotourism could open up undisturbed locations to economic exploitation (Kumar, 2015).
Ecotourism was introduced in India after the World Tourism Organization announced 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism coming under the United National Environmental Program. In its conjunction of environmental conservation co-operating with the market mechanism, it became a very popular ideology within India’s policy establishment. However, according to Kumar (2015), although India has flourishing entrepreneurship in its tourism industry, sustainable ecotourism as learning and intimacy with nature practically seems non-existent in India. The consciousness of nature in terms of sustainability and conservation seems to be largely insufficient among tourists in India to form a practice of ecotourism within India’s policy infrastructure.
Although India has immense natural wonders and institutional knowledge is sufficient to provide the basic prompt for overlaying a policy for ecotourism, promoting it is difficult for it to figure in policy. Although in philosophy many international guidelines exist for guiding ecotourism principles in India, such as the UNWTO guidelines for the development of National Parks and protected areas, the PATA code for environmentally responsible tourism, the guidelines of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), the Himalayan Tourism Advisory Board’s Himalayan code of conduct and the guidelines of TIES, implementation of such guidelines in practice has not yet been witnessed in a widespread manner in India.
There are immense obstacles to developing a practice of ecotourism in India. Some of them include the denial of the fundamental rights of local communities and their widespread displacement for tourism projects, changes in indigenous practices, waste produced as a by-product of tourism activities even if these activities were ecotourism activities such as vehicular waste, changes in wildlife behaviour due to human interference, a lack of partnerships between public & private entities and people, the lack of scientific knowledge among tourists that cannot for example guide their carbon footprint in pristine habitats, etc.
Ecotourism that is not properly implemented in a learned manner can thus fall prey to commercialization, and more often than not commercial interests can overrun the pedagogy of policy on the ground level. Ecotourism that is commercially intended also runs the risk of imposing human intervention in regions that were previously pristine natural habitats. However, if pedagogy is correctly installed purely as a learning experience for tourists, much can be gained in terms of awareness and agency for environmental conservation and sustainability. Without a proper pedagogical infrastructure in place, ecotourism can easily fall prey to commercial exploitation that may claim to protect the environment but can have extensive knock-on effects to the detriment of environmental conservation. Sustainable ecotourism thus requires that a proper pedagogy in policy can be correctly installed.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.