This was in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed in the Supreme Court by RTI activist Ajay Dubey demanding ban on tourism in core areas of tiger reserves with environment ministry's National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) backing the PIL.
The NTCA has already issued guidelines asking the states to shift the tourism activity to buffer zone and ban tourism in core areas. An area of 800-1,000 sq kms have be declared as core tiger habitat, where no tourism can be allowed.
“In the present circumstances tourism will not sustain in the buffer areas of alone because the buffer areas do not get the level of protection as granted to the core area and hence the density of the wildlife in buffer area is very less," the state government said in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court.
Instead of restricting tourism to buffer zones, the state government argued that relocation of people (around 6,000 families in 41 tiger reserves) living in tiger reserves and imposing restrictions on collection of minor forest produce was a better way to protect tigers.
The logic presented was that tourism does not exploit resources on which the wildlife depends like humans and thereby, it has minimum impact on wildlife.
Countering the claims of MP government, the WTI told the court that adverse impact of tourism could be seen on tigers in Kanha, Pench and Badhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh in MP, Ranthambore in Rajasthan and Corbett in Uttarakhand. Read the full report here.
Source: Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times, New Delhi.
