Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve - Equitable Tourism Options

Water treatment and sewage disposal systems are generally absent in
tourist locations. When large-scale tourism service providers skirt around
environmental protection norms, the informal sector like shacks and
restaurants also follow the trait. The cumulative effect of these is found to
complicate matters.
Tourism in PAs
Regions that receive specific protection measures, as in the case of
Protected Areas (PAs), which include national parks, wildlife sanctuaries,
biosphere reserves and tiger reserves, and regions that have no specific
protection whatsoever but come under general regulatory mechanisms
need to be understood differentially while discussing tourism and
biodiversity.
Creation of 'tourism zones' inside PAs further intensifies this discrimination.
This has led to the legitimised presence of a global industry inside an
ecologically sensitive region, whereas many a times the indigenous
communities are often evicted from the forest areas, while tourism is
promoted. Tourism is primarily a consumptive activity based on presence of
people. This sets the picture upside down and questions the very basis of
PAs, which excludes a sparsely numbered indigenous community living with
no or minimum infrastructure, in the name of conservation. Ironically another
set of people are brought in, who have no prior understanding of the intrinsic
sensitivity ofthe PA, as tourists.
Tourism Practices - current
The current practices of tourism however are that of sheer exploitation of
nature, resources and also of the community who are dependent on such
resources. There is enough proof to show that the tourism industry violates
existing laws and disregard peoples' interests by deliberate moves. This
includes the forests, hills, mountains, deserts, coasts, backwaters,
mangroves and islands.
Forest regions
The thrust to nature-based tourism, currently popular with the term
ecotourism, has brought forests into the ambit oftourism discussions. With
multiple stakeholders and interests already in this region, tourism has only
aggravated the conflicts. Forexample commercialisation and
13 Nilagiris : Fading Glory