Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve - Equitable Tourism Options

use of biological diversity or adapts for this purpose existing strategies,
plans or programmes which shall reflect, inter alia, the measures set out in
this Convention relevant to the Contracting Party concerned; and
integrates as far as possible and as appropriate, the conservation and
sustainable use of biodiversity in the relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral
plans, programmes and policies.
National level policy processes in the past have often been top-down and
limited to a small number of 'experts' and consultants ... and as a result,
have often ended up remaining on paper, or being irrelevant to the lives of
the ordinary citizen. Such processes have also tended to remain within the
narrow compartments of "environment" on the one hand, or "development"
on the other, with very little interplay between them.
In a radical departure from established norms, the NBSAP planning
process has started from several decentralised sources, and is attempting
to redefine the development process itself by showing ways of making it
ecologically and socially more sensitive. The process involves the
preparation of:
• 18 local action plans, involving micro-planning processes at village
to district levels, spread over 15 states (see attached map)
• 33 state and union territory level action plans
• 1 o action plans for eco-regions cutting across states (e.g. Western
Ghats, East Coast, etc.; see attached map)
• 14 national thematic action plans (e.g. culture, agriculture, wildlife
and ecosystems, health, technology. laws and policies, education
and training, access/lPRs)
• a national action plan built on all ofthe above
EQUATIONS was designated the task of writing the sub-thematic paper on
Biodiversity and Tourism in the backdrop ofthese processes.
Background ofthe Paper
The Paper deals primarily with gross impacts of tourism activities in major
ecosystems identified in India. It also tries to focus on principles in relation
to tourism and biodiversity. and not detailed aspects like ecotourism
initiatives in a particu lar. The section on ecotourism has been included
51 Nilagiris : Fading Glory