The Union environment and forest ministry has rejected a move by the tourism lobby to turn parts of tiger reserves and reserved forests into exclusive enclaves for high-end tourism.
The environment and forest ministry has decided to nip the proposal in the bud, which emanated from Madhya Pradesh, with the tourism lobby asking that a patch of forest reserve be handed over to them to run as a South Africa-style safari where rich tourists can be catered. While the Madhya Pradesh government forest department had supported the proposal pushed by a group of tour companies — Travel Operators for Tigers — the union ministry has rejected it.
The tourism lobby was keen to go beyond the one case of Madhya Pradesh and wanted a policy change to assist such exclusive enclaves in forest areas all over the country. They had demanded a national experts conference on the issue to promoted their proposal. That too, the union environment and forests ministry has refused to entertain.
Sources in the ministry said that the existing wildlife protection regulations do not provide for such commercial activities in the name of conservation so it had rejected the MP proposal as well as the demand to hold consultations on a policy change.
The pressure from the tourism lobby to open up forests to the lucrative ‘wildlife tourism’ comes even after PM Manmohan Singh, as chair of the National Board for Wildlife, had written to select states asking that the chief ministers intervene to reduce tourism pressure on high profile tiger reserves.
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