Six Questions To Fix The Mess

The interim ban on tourism in core tiger reserves has sharply polarised conservationists, communities and the tourism sector. But it is possible to reconcile their interests.

Tehelka, 14 August, 2012

The Supreme Court’s interim ban on tiger tourism and ultimatum to states on buffer notification has divided the so-called green constituency like never before. A large section of forest staff and conservationists have hailed the court for being sympathetic to their cause. But the ban on tourism in core tiger forests has alarmed hoteliers, tour operators and a section of tiger experts. The deadline on buffer areas has angered local communities who resent not being consulted in the hasty demarcation.

Given the lack of green cover and mega fauna (read tigers) outside many core areas, the move to gradually shift tourism towards buffer forests in the next five years is being criticised as undemocratic and impractical. The states’ reluctance to notify buffers maybe fuelled by vested interests in mega industry, mining or plantation but villagers on the ground are worried that legal restrictions will compromise their livelihood.

However, the interests of conservation, community and tourism do not appear irreconcilable if we answer the very questions that appear to divide these constituencies. Shekar Dattatri (Conservation India), Ashish Kothari (Kalpavriksh) and Julian Matthews (Tour Operators for Tigers) seem to agree.

ONE: Do we really need to demarcate fresh buffers after clubbing and notifying erstwhile core and buffer areas as critical tiger habitat?

Tiger reserves were always divided into the central core and peripheral buffer areas. To bring as much area as possible under better protection, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has notified the entire area of most tiger reserves as critical tiger habitat (CTH). In most reserves, the new core, therefore, includes areas that were earlier designated as buffer. So do we really need to notify more areas as buffer, particularly when many reserves do not have a trace of forest outside the CTH?

The answer is not simple. To stave off the incessant pressure of development, it is important to have legal restrictions in a protective ring around our reserves. On paper, a buffer notification does not compromise local livelihood options such as agriculture but it discourages mega development such as heavy industry, mining and highways.

However, in reserves such as Ranthambhore, agricultural fields skirt the CTH and a major part of the CTH itself is severely degraded. Yet, the Rajasthan government recently notified two small island forests miles away from the CTR as Ranthambhore buffer just because it had to. Such paper buffers do not really help tiger reserves.

But if existing or potential forest areas are designated as buffers around tiger reserves, it safeguards conservation (and often communities) against future land diversion. But it is legally binding that local villagers be consulted before notifying such areas. Since a lot of misinformation by vested interests antagonises the communities, a thorough awareness drive is required around each tiger reserve so that locals can make informed choices. To protect the villagers’ rights and the interests of conservation, the FD and local bodies such as panchayats should work out explicit MOUs clearly defining the dos and don’ts under the FRA, FCA and WLPA.

Shekar Dattatri: We need a site-specific approach. Wherever a fresh buffer is possible, it makes sense to declare it now, before it is too late. My understanding is that declaration of buffer will not affect anyone’s domicile status or legitimate livelihood. Unfortunately, vested interests are always at work. Around Mudumalai, for example, vested interests, many of them encroachers, spread the rumour that the forest department was planning to release tigers in the buffer after notification! The forest department must mount an information campaign with public talks, posters, bill boards etc to remove misgivings. Unless they do this, there will be massive unrest in some areas and the buffer declaration process will get stalled, SC order or not. Anything done in a tearing hurry - or unilaterally - will be impractical and undesirable in the long term.

Ashish Kothari: The CTHs have been declared in haste to avoid the FRA process and now we are witnessing the same hurry in the buffer notification process. To ensure that buffers are not restrictive of livelihoods of various kinds, there must be clarity of the rights of people living in this area through full implementation of the FRA and PESA, and processes of gram sabha consent, not only consultation. Already we are witnessing restrictions in places like Tadoba’s buffer. So we need truly joint decision-making with FD and local communities having equal say in management across the landscape (including the core). A clearly worked out, legally binding MoUs between the FD and each village is a must, including the assurance that tomorrow, the buffer too won’t be turned into a core (especially if wildlife increases) and people kicked out.

Julian Matthews: Yes, we do need buffers to keep away the most polluting and degrading forms of land use. Tourism establishments should be allowed in these areas, but minimum operational standards, EIAs, clear building regulations and maximum footprint areas should be designated within these areas. If critical areas such as corridors are owned by farmers or are community forests, we should set down a joint management regime. The local stakeholders (communities) should be able to manage such areas themselves or tender management responsibility to a vetted private operator for fee/yearly leasehold and other benefits such as jobs.

TWO: Can our wilderness withstand the growing pressure of tourism?

More than 50 laky tourists visit India’s forests every year. This amounts to a daily average of 14,000. Compared to a villager, a tourist uses 5-10 times more water. Resorts need electricity and diesel generator sets pollute the air. Wood furnaces are widely used for heating water and also for cooking in many places. The tourists generate mounds of garbage which are dumped recklessly. A number of resorts also block wildlife corridors and illegally use natural resources like stone and sand for construction.

The footprint of these 14,000 individual tourists, and easily another 1000 migrant support staff, puts as much pressure on the resources as 15000 rural families would. This is almost equivalent to one-third of the targeted families under the government’s voluntary relocation scheme. What is more, this tourist load is not uniformly distributed across the country and the pressure is acute in a few popular tiger destinations. In the census, settlements with a population of over 5000 are deemed towns and daily tourist presence would exceed that benchmark in quite a few wildlife tourism hubs.

The government is as much responsible as the tourism sector for presiding over this mess. Few existing regulations are imposed and widespread corruption in the forest and civic administration has allowed unscrupulous players in the wildlife tourism business get away bending every rule. Increasing political stake in the sector has made the situation worse.

Dattatri: Clearly, they cannot. Many luxury resorts already hem our popular reserves, posing a big challenge. However, development around other, relatively unspoiled parks should be strictly regulated now. To minimize pressure on resources resorts must take aggressive measures like installing cooking gas, solar water heaters, rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling etc. Many will not do it until forced. So perhaps we need a law for tourist facilities within a certain radius from reserves. All existing constructions blocking known wildlife corridors must go. The government must acquire such land, while perhaps making exceptions for individual landholdings that are large, wooded with natural vegetation and unfenced, allowing unfettered movement of wildlife.

Kothati: Current levels of tourism are clearly unsustainable; but they are also deeply inequitable, as benefits are mostly cornered by private resort/hotel owners and tour operators. All tourism must not only be ecologically sustainable, but also managed by local communities, or with them as equal partners. There is no reason their capacity to do this cannot be built up in the next few years. Overall, any tourism in the area must happen as part of a larger landscape level plan for conservation, livelihoods, and human well-being, with strategies that are tuned to the local environment and biodiversity, the local cultures, and local economies. The current attempt at trying to resolve the issue with tourism at the centre, and with a one-size-fits-all prescription, is fundamentally flawed.

Matthews: Agreed and this is all true. India has good environmental and wildlife laws but no enforcement mechanisms. We need an independent professionally run ‘Ecotourism Authority’ with local representatives in each state, who lay down regulations, set out audits, and enforce regulations. At least 95% of India’s forests are still unvisited and we need to spread tourism further and thinner to those areas. We have to realise that nature tourism is only going to grow and prepare a ‘roadmap’ for constructive growth. We do need to use tourism as an economic catalyst to help restore buffers and corridors too, with state mechanisms that allows community conservancies, joint management of community forests through public/private partnership or NGOs.

THREE: Why can’t we offer customised tourism?

Due to legal restrictions on mega development and crop predation by wild herbivores, tourism is an important economic tool in and around protected forests. To fully benefit from it, hoteliers have to accept that different segments of tourists have different demands and offer customised experiences. Within the core, the FD can offer limited (one two-room forest rest house in every zone) no-frill accommodation for zero impact tourism.

A5-km radius outside the core can be designated for low impact and high mitigation tourism where small non-luxury home stays run by local villagers can coexist with bigger resorts that use solar power to meet at least half their energy requirement, follow a garbage disposal protocol and pay high water tariff for usage exceeding the quota. These resorts can pass on the extra cost to the tourists who demand both luxury and proximity to forests. The proposed cess on resorts should be used as a corpus to build capacity among the locals by offering soft loans and skill training to take over the running of tourism.

Outside this 5-km ring, restrictions and regulations can be relaxed suitably. This will bring down the cost and allow certain recreational activities. Such a three-tier system will be able to cater to all economic and interest groups: those who want no-frills wildlife experience (core), those on a budget and want some creature comforts close to forest (buffer home stays), those who want luxury close to forest and can pay for it (buffer resorts), and those who want to party in the night and go on safaris during the day (resorts outside 5-km radius).

Dattatri: In principle, I agree that core areas can remain open for limited, zero-impact tourism in small, Spartan accommodation. But everything will depend on how these are managed. There should be a strict rule prohibiting non-vegetarian food or liquor as this will be discourage those who are simply looking for a good time. Bookings should be completely transparent.

Kothari: Even outside the 5-km ring, there are many important species and ecosystems, along with sensitive cultures and livelihoods. Any tourism in these and other areas needs also to be ecologically, socially and culturally sensitive, and fit into the integrated landscape vision and planning process I mention above.

Matthews: I feel it is critical that this happens in the near future. There will be a section that will go for no-frill, zero impact experience. This will also ensure that other keen naturalists can get better wildlife experience while picnic tourists can also enjoy and pay less. I would also encourage local safari parks, where injured or dangerous animals can be housed in cleverly constructed large enclosures (not zoos) and people can enjoy game drives without putting pressures on national parks.

FOUR: Is it impossible to develop buffer forests in five years?

Given an opportunity, nature always bounces back. Under a public-private partnership, key areas in a designated buffer should be targeted for forest regeneration by compensating willing villagers for not using the land. This is also the most direct way that tourism money can flow to the communities.

However, it could be socially disastrous to have people idling on compensation. So the same villagers should be engaged as part of the land deal (unless there is no suitable member in a family) to protect the buffer forest. A few of them can be handpicked and trained to monitor the safaris with a sense of ownership of the forest. This will lessen the burden on the FD and create local jobs.

Also, a villager should retain his right to clear the regenerated forest on his land for agriculture or homestead if at any point he stops receiving the payment for land services which should anyway be revised every year factoring in the inflation. He should also have the right to his proportionate share if any carbon credit is accrued from such regenerated forests at any point of time.

Dattatri: In some places a half decent forest may already exist, which, if protected, will regenerate on its own. In other areas there may already be a very hard edge between the reserve and the outside, where farmland may be interspersed with dwellings. In wet areas, good growth can be established in five years. In dry areas, this could take up to 10 years. Money generated from tourism should be used to encourage willing farmers to 're-wild' their land.

Kothari: The buffers will have not only individual agricultural land, but also lots of commons. Across India, communities have regenerated lakes of hectares on their own or with government or NGO help. The so-called ‘public-private’ partnerships should not become fronts for the private corporate sector to profit while villagers remain in subservient positions. Empowering and capacitating communities is a much better and more sustainable strategy.

Matthews: This is important and the only real way for communities to really become beneficiaries in wildlife. We need to turn them from cattle herders to wildlife guardians in such a way. The only way for this to happen is to forge real stakeholder partnerships in conservancies like these and involve professional experts and NGOs.

FIVE: Why can’t we offer incentive to tourism and adapt a compensatory approach?

Even the government’s draft guidelines suggest that safaris should continue in core areas for another five years till buffers develop. But this access should now be linked to a hotel’s (homestays exempt) investment in buffer development. In Kanha, for example, 140 safari gypsies enter the reserve twice a day. The FD may be allowed control of, say, 5% or 7 gypsies for VIPs etc. Another 25% of the fleet (35 vehicles) may be earmarked for the homestay guests. The rest, 98 gypsies, should be allotted to hotels as per their investment in the buffer.

The Kanha management can identify 100 acres of revenue land per Gypsy (9800 acres i.e. roughly 40 sq km) as key areas for forest regeneration in the buffer for an annual payment of Rs 10,000/acre to the villagers who own the land. A hotel will get dedicated annual right to a Gypsy for every 100 acres he supports. This works out to be annually Rs 10 lakh per Gypsy but hoteliers will not feel the pinch if the safari tourists, instead of paying entry fees to the FD, pay respective hotels.

The maths is simple. One Gypsy in two daily shifts carries 8 tourists. There are a minimum of 250 tourist days in a year. To recover Rs 10 lakh from one Gypsy, hoteliers will have to charge only Rs 500 for each seat. This way, 98 Gypsies can generate Rs 9.80 crore and support 40 sq km of private land around which 200-400 sq km of buffer forest can flourish.

Dattatri: In principle, this is a good idea. When people begin to grow a forest, they will realize how much effort is required and will then be more zealous about protecting their patches.

Kothari: In the short run some formula for sharing revenues is fine (though it cannot be the same figures across the country), but in the long run, as I mention above, all tourism must be community-run or in equal partnership. Flow of revenues to villages, who want such an arrangement, will then take place automatically.

Matthews: This is a very interesting idea, and should be considered but I can imagine it being both politically a problem, as parks lose essential revenue, but also an administrative headache.

SIX: Will we be able to keep a tab on the tiger status in core areas if tourism is eventually moved out?

If buffer forests are adjacent to the core (as is the case in most tiger reserves) rather than isolated units (as in Ranthambhore), it is possible to keep a tab on the tiger status in the core without necessarily visiting it frequently. If there are enough tigers in the buffer, the source (core) is likely to be secure.

But there is an outside chance of a vibrant buffer becoming the new source area if negligence by the FD destroys the integrity of the adjoining core. To safeguard against such eventualities, social audits in the form of zero-impact tourism should continue in the core. Researchers, credible NGOs and local gram sabha representatives should also have periodic access to all areas of a tiger reserve. In any case, compensatory day safaris (subject to investment in buffer) should continue in core areas till viable buffers are developed.

Dattatri: Yes, but only if social audits involve year-round access to scientists, accredited NGO groups who have a track record of conservation in the area, and through appointing a credible locally resident person as honorary wildlife warden. If the park is big, there could be more than one honorary wildlife warden. Their names, contact details, and monthly field reports should be available in the public domain. On no account should core areas be totally out of bounds to everyone.

Kothari: If the landscape is under forms of governance that involve local communities in a central role, the entire area will be under participatory monitoring. Any system that leaves an area entirely to one department is a recipe for disaster. Independent researchers should also have access.

Matthews: It is critical that NGOs and researchers are given access to all areas of a park and that tourism is allowed to be used as an effective economic and awareness tool. All evidence from parks today in India suggests where tourism exists there is greater transparency, greater accountability and less extractive pressures from bordering communities on these habitats. Tourism is not a panacea but it is a powerful tool for both conservation and communities.