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contribute to ongoing programmes;
these cover “eco-development,
environmental education... health,
small to medium-sized enterprise
development, alternative livelihood
options, improvement of basic
infrastructure such as electricity
supply, drinking water, better road and
connectivity and telecommunication and
skills development. Most importantly,
the sector supports and encourages
nature conservation.” This latter was
most apparent in a comparison of
attitudes of people in villages with
tourism infrastructure and those
without. Some of the non-tourist-
aff ected villages were very hostile to
the survey team when they arrived by
jeep in their village since they assumed
that they must be connected to the
Forest Department. A comparison also
showed that small business enterprises
in villages where tourism was present
generated nearly eight times more
revenue than in those villages without
(Rs. 79 lakh : Rs. 10 lakh).MORE INDIRECT BENEFITS
What is often overlooked is the
indirect fi nancial benefi t that the
tourism industry generates in these
remote areas. They spawn a myriademployment options from handicrafts
and artists to plumbers, electricians
and accountants. Based on the shared
details of a few lodges, it seems that
the injection towards this could run to
as much as Rs.15 crores around the four
parks surveyed.
Tourism is also a labour-intensive
industry; it is one of the world’s top
job creators. This is a crucial aspect
as wildlife tourism is usually in fairly
remote areas where employment
opportunities are sparse. The Madhya
Pradesh study found that as much
as 80 per cent of the hotel staff are
locals and if combined with the fees
paid to local vehicle owners, guides and
more, as much as Rs.38 crores ($5.8
million) ends up being injected into the
local economy. Taking into account the
indirect employment generated, plus
park fees, possibly 56 per cent of the
hotels’ turnover actually feeds into the
local area (over Rs. 92 crores – around
US$ 14 million).
So the numbers indicate that
tourism can and does bring substantial
benefi t to remote rural communities.
And this is despite the fact that
tourism has grown in such a haphazard
unorganised manner, with little or no
policy focus or control. In the surveyThe results of a new study cast
a more positive light and show that
facts actually paint a rather diff erent
picture. The research, led by eminent
tiger scientist Dr. Raghu Chundawat,
was presented in a preliminary report
published by TOFTigers and Baavan,
entitled The Value of Wildlife Tourism
for Conservation and Communities.
Four tiger reserves of central India –
Bandhavgarh, Kanha, Panna and
Pench – were examined and the
results not only dispel many of the
prevailing wildlife tourism myths, but
are encouraging in providing a possible
way forward to extend conservation
beyond the PAs and to provide
sustainable livelihoods for remotely-
situated rural communities.
COMMUNITY BENEFITS
The fi gures are surprising: the park
entrance fees alone are higher than the
state government’s contribution toward
the maintenance of the four reserves in
the study. And, at least theoretically, this
is money paid directly for community
development and conservation. Since
1997, all tourism related fees in Madhya
Pradesh are deposited in a Development
Fund created for each Protected Area.
Thus, the fees from tourism provide
nearly Rs. 20 crores annually that could
and should be spent on development
for the local community and/or the
PA. Recent fi gures may indicate a
better picture but in 2013 very little
of this was in fact fed back into the
community. Apparently at best a mere
20 per cent of this went for community
development or was provided to the
eco-development committees (Kanha);
elsewhere it varied from zero (Pench,
Panna and Satpura) to 12 per cent
(Bandhavgarh), according to ‘A Note on
Tourism in Tiger Reserves of Madhya
Pradesh’ in http://www.academia.edu by Dr.
Suhas Kumar (PCCF M.P. retired) in 2013.
Dr. Kumar does not record where the
rest of the substantial amount goes. In
this also lies a strong reason why many
resorts are not keen on a conservation
fee; they prefer to spend it on private
eco-development work rather than pay
into a government fund from which so
little emerges for the community.
It was heartening to fi nd that most
resorts indeed run their own community
development programmes and/or
FACING PAGE Ecotourism could be the means for forests beyond the PA boundaries to be brought
into the conservation fold, boosting the viability of small tiger reserves by providing additional
protected tiger breeding areas, while also providing stepping stones of safety in corridors from one
PA to another.
ABOVE Tourism, if well planned to be sustainable, is one of the very few industries that can have
an ecologically low footprint, help protect wilderness and off er livelihoods to locals.COURTESY: FORSYTH LODGE