Wildlife tourism in India, especially tiger-centric tourism, has been reined in by the country's Supreme Court because the industry was becoming increasingly unsustainable and over-exploitative. On 24 July 2012, in an interim order, the Supreme Court conditionally banned tourism in the core or critical tiger habitats of all 41 tiger reserves in India in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed by activist Ajay Dubey in September 2010. In the order the Court also asked states to notify buffers for tiger reserves as mandated by law. The purpose behind the Court's temporary ban appeared to be to force states to notify buffer zones for tiger reserves and establish standards of allowable growth and best practices for tourism. The temporary ban fuelled an ongoing, acrimonious and polarized debate on whether tourism is harming or benefiting wildlife in India, and if its benefits reach local communities or the reserves. Much of the furore appears to be centered on popular tiger reserves such as Ranthambhore, Kanha and Corbett.
The debate was triggered by a report on the impacts of wildlife tourism in the popular Corbett Tiger Reserve. The report noted that ill-planned and unregulated tourism had damaged prime meadows and habitats and choked key tiger and elephant corridors. This debate must be viewed in the context that India is home to 50% of the world's surviving tiger populations. Although the country potentially has c. 250,000 km2 of tiger habitat only c. 10% of these populations, primarily those in protected wildlife reserves, are viable source populations with reasonable densities of tigers. Protecting these source populations requires concerted efforts to mitigate all threats. Although tourism is not the primary threat to tigers, unregulated and unplanned growth in tourism is intensifying pressure, especially around some reserves, and in its current form is unsustainable.
India's wildlife tourism is growing at 15% annually and tourist facilities use local resources heavily, especially water and fuelwood. Tourism has only marginally benefited local communities and the reserves themselves. Yet, this growth in tourism is also an opportunity to increase public support for tigers and wildlife conservation in India. Unfortunately, rather than focusing the discussion on how to regulate and improve existing tourism management and practices so that the public can continue to enjoy the opportunity to view wildlife, much of the debate has focused on defending high-end tiger tourism, which is restricted to a few reserves and is less relevant to the larger conservation context.
In response to the Court's directives the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) redrafted guidelines on tourism in tiger reserves, taking into consideration the views of all stakeholders. These guidelines—largely a framework for states to build their own ecotourism strategy—allows regulated, low-impact tourism in a maximum of 20% of the core or critical tiger habitat of a reserve. The new policy also seeks to encourage low-ecological footprint, budget tourism, and a flow of benefits to local communities and reserves and envisages a conservation cess to be paid by resorts. These guidelines prohibit the building of new infrastructure in core areas or in areas from which villages have been voluntarily relocated to recreate inviolate habitats. A major lacuna, however, is that the guidelines fail to adequately curb the construction boom on the fringes of reserves. The guidelines also evade other critical issues such as defining the ‘zone of influence’ around a reserve.
On 16 Oct 2012 the Supreme Court lifted the ban, allowing tourism to recommence in core areas in accordance with the MoEF guidelines However, whether these guidelines will be executed and implemented effectively depends on state and local authorities, and the process will be scrutinized by many in India.
