Cess on wildlife tourism on cards -HT

If the environment ministry have its way, tourist facilities around 600 protected areas including tiger reserves will have to pay an unspecified cess on their turnover to sustain conservation and local livelihood development from January 2012. The new draft eco-tourism guidelines are based on recomm


endations of a seven member government committee, whose member Bittu Sahgal, editor of Sanctuary magazine has questioned its implementability in a letter to environment minister Jairam Ramesh. 
“Basically what was finally put into the draft was at variance from my perception of the discussions and understanding we had. Also the guidelines are un-implementable in their current form,” Sahgal told HT in an email response. 

The guidelines said that the state governments should levy “local conservation cess” as a percentage of the turnover on all privately run tourist facilities within five kms of the protected areas and the money should be deposited in a special protected area management fund.

The fund can be used only for conservation and local livelihood development with an aim of ensuring local community participation in protecting wildlife and sharing of monetary benefits.

Once the guidelines are notified, all major hotel chains having tourist facilities around popular tiger reserves such as Corbett National Park, Ranthambore Tiger Reserve and Kanha Tiger Reserve will have to pay a cess.

“Adequate provisions must be made to ensure that ecotourism does not get relegated to purely high-end exclusive tourism leaving out local communities,” the guidelines state, adding that the first beneficiaries should be local people.

The guidelines also say that half of the energy requirement should come from renewable source and the vehicles used by tour operators should run on eco friendly fuel. It also imposes a ban on construction of tourism facilities on forestland and says financial incentive should be provided to convert revenue land outside the protected areas as forestland.

Such a move may impact number of private resorts that have come up in the green buffer zone of the Corbett, which as per government record is revenue land. Revenue land is under administrative control district collector whereas forestland is managed by district forest officer. It also gives powers to the state governments to impose restrictions on infrastructure in close proximity of tiger reserves or national parks.

For regulating tourism, the ministry has recommended a two tier structure --- a state level steering committee under Chief Minister and a district level advisory body with district collector as chairperson.

The ministry has given time till December 31, 2011 to the state governments to constitute various committees and create the fund so that the guidelines become applicable from January 2012.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Cess-on-wildlife-tourism-on-cards/Article1-704940.aspx

Experts want MP tigers for Sariska reserve forests -DNA

Jaipur: Six tigers have been relocated to the Sariska Tiger Reserve in last five years and four remain to be shifted to revitalize the eco system in Jaipur. Though Ranthambhore National Park is state government's most convenient option, wildlife experts are beginning to demand "careful" translocation to save the species.

Though authorities are keeping their cards close to the chest, tiger conservation experts are insisting that Rajasthan should try to get tigers from Kanha and Bandhavgarh reserves of Madhya Pradesh. This, they say, is important for ensuring that tigers have good genes.

"For genetically stronger progeny, it is important that tigers from the same family do not mate with each other. To ensure this, we must translocate tigers from MP. The state can send a few tigers from Ranthambhore to their tiger reserves, like Panna and Pench, and, in turn, get tigers from Kanha and Bandhavgarh reserves," said Senior Vice-President of Sariska Tiger Foundation Sunayan Sharma.

According to the translocation plan for Sariska, which has been approved by the Wildlife Institute of India, 10 tigers were supposed to be relocated to Sariska over a span of 10 years. However, tiger conservationist said that exchanging tigers is a temporary solution to a graver problem. They are of the opinion that corridors should be developed from Ranthambhore to Sariska via Keoladeo sanctuary for tigers to be able to naturally move from one reserve to another and maintain genetic variety.

"There are natural routes which facilitate movement of tigers from MP's Palpur-Kuno sanctuary to Ranthambhore via Keoladeo sanctuary. The tiger which strayed up to Mathura and finally reached Keoladeo was following the same centuries old route. The aim of tiger conservation should be to create a natural and sustainable habitat for tigers and not breed them in jungles by translocation and relocation," said Shatrunjai Singh Khandela, tiger conservationist.

http://daily.bhaskar.com/article/RAJ-JPR-experts-want-mp-tigers-for-sariska-reserve-forests-2157619.html?D3-JAI=