Wild Picture of the Day or #WildPic today is ”The Wildlife Tourism Tangle”. 

As India await’s the supreme courts judgement on the future of tiger tourism in core critical tiger habitats - India’s premier wildlife conservation & ecology magazine Sanctuary Asia’s editor Mr. Bittu Sahgal contributes attached picture with his message for today’s #WildPic series.

Via

THE WILDLIFE TOURISM TANGLE - Bittu Sahgal

The fundamental error that the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and their supporters have made is that instead of curbing the number and nature of lodges spreading like a disease just OUTSIDE our best protected national parks and tigers reserves, they chose to prevent all entry INTO the reserves. The Quixotic logic went something like this: “If no one is allowed INSIDE, then no one will want to build a lodge OUTSIDE.” Amazing!

What we had recommended instead was the use of the Environment Protection Act to curb the density of lodges bordering wildlife areas. We also asked that lodges cater to wildlife tourists contribute a percentage of their turnover to the parks and to the local community. District Collectors we said should prevent one lodge from being located less than 250 metres from the boundary of another lodge and no fences must be allowed to encircle properties to facilitate free movement of wildlife between lodges.

PHOTO:

This permission to slaughter trees and harm Rajaji National Park was granted by the same Ministry of Environment and Forests, which claims it wishes to ‘protect’ the park by preventing all visitors to watch wildlife inside.

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Wild Navigator thanks Mr. Bittu Sahgal for his contribution.

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