COURTESY: TOFTigers library/TigerwatchThousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilised people
are beginning to fi nd that going to the mountains is
going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that
mountain parks and reservations are useful not only
as a fountain of timber and irrigating rivers, but as
fountains of life.
This could be written for the real world of today, yet it
was penned in 1890, by the father of America’s national
park system, a Scotsman named John Muir. He had spent
a lifetime both loving, and in love with nature, from
garnering unbridled happiness in the tiniest of fl owers to
joyfulness in climbing the highest Sierra Nevada peaks. He
actively encouraged people to experience wild – not like
most of us do today – but more deeply and spiritually;
not dashing around in our vehicles – but by simply
waiting, watching, and listening – letting nature come to
us; letting it unfold before our very eyes. Few of us, not
even wildlife researchers, spend time in the wild this way,
enduring forging winds and belting rain, biting winters and
gruellingly hot summer, as John Muir did for over two
decades. Today, irrational laws and regulations created by
people who do not recognise the potential of tourism to
do well by nature conservation, force us to experience the
wild in a transitory way – eff ectively banning us from our
own wildness; our own ancestral primordial home.
There is a better way.
John Muir passionately believed that everyone possessed
a love of nature – but it’s all too often ‘buried under
VOTE FOR NATURE
The 5th TOFTigers Wildlife Tourism Awards
in association with the Sanctuary Nature Foundation
Ten of the Village Wildlife Volunteers in Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve’s buff er zone, a programme run by Dr. Dharmendra Khandal
of Tigerwatch. © TOFTigers library/Tigerwatch
care and duty’. If only people took time out to be in and
experience the wilderness as a part of the wild, this love
would again blossom. He observed how indigenous tribes
lived so gently off the land, capable of harvesting its
delights, without ever destroying it. Yet he could even
then, 130 years ago, see the writing on the wall, for the
introduction of grazing livestock (besides the gold rush)
were already beginning to have a devastating impact on
his beloved North American wildernesses and their fl ora
and fauna.South Asia and its populace are on a roller-coaster
journey too... between the forces of modernisation and
its demand for irrevocable speed, and the ephemeral
and slow dance of the natural world. However, along
this journey we have visionary individuals, who against
all the odds, seek and aspire to the highest ideals of
environmental consciousness and social equity in the
ways they envision and operate their establishments, run
projects and work with the genius of local communities.
Such initiatives inspire visitors and help manage
destinations such that both people and parks benefi t.
Together with the Sanctuary Nature Foundation such are
the examples and the individuals we aim to highlight and
spotlight at the 5th TOFTigers Wildlife Tourism Awards in
September 2018.We now call on you to help us – by nominating
your favourites – and by voting across a range of
award categories. Further details are available at
http://www.toftigers.org/WildlifeTourismAwards and
http://www.sanctuaryasia.com