The Commercialization of Wildlife

Commercialisation is defined as “the act of commercializing something; involving a link into commerce”; this commerce trade in tourism activities has left wildlife destinations in a state of chaos. The number of rooms to a wilderness area should be well laid down by the government authorities and the buying and selling of land around protected areas should be kept in check. All these issues with the pressure of viewing star animals like tigers or elephants with no benefits whatsoever to local communities around the area has not only spoilt but changed the whole concept of wilderness destinations.

I take the prime example here of one of India’s prime Tiger reserves. Corbett National Park. Corbett was the first park that I surveyed/audited for Global Tiger Patrol and Travel Operators for Tigers. My aim was to identify way’s to improve good practices and responsible tourism where resorts start contributing back to conservation and local communities. Before I get into my findings let’s look back to the origin of Corbett.

Formally known as the Hailey’s national park and established in 8th August, 1936 to the formation of the Ramganga reserve it was the first national park where Project Tiger was launched in 1973.

James Edward Corbett, better known to the world as Jim Corbett, was born in Nainital (now in the Indian state of Uttaranchal) on 25 July 1875. In 1907, he killed a man-eating tiger which was one of the many man-eaters he wrote about in his well published books and was sanctioned to kill. In years to come Jim retained a compassion even for man-eaters, as he realised that they killed humans only to appease the most primary instinct of hunger because of old age, disability (canines not strong enough to cut through meat) and when injury prevented them from catching their normal prey. In many cases the disability or injury was inflicted by humans. This, till date, exists with features leading up to Human-Animal conflicts.

Jim was granted with the ’ freedom of the forests’ from the government. With a past background of serving in the railways Jim Corbett, as a lot of people believe, became the first naturalist in India to start daylight photography of tigers in their natural habitat. In 1929 he produced a number of excellent films which he later gifted to the Natural History Museum in London. On 19 April 1955, he passed to the ’Happy Hunting Grounds’ and was buried at Nyeri (Kenya – near the famous Aberdare National Park).

Corbett has a rich biodiversity attributed to a variety of habitats in it. Due to the park’s location in the foothills of the central Himalayas, both Himalayan and peninsular flora and fauna are found in the reserve. Avian checklist caters to over 300 species in the area and different types of spectacular animals ranging from tigers, leopards, elephants, mugger, deer to the river masher. The park is less then 300 km from the India’s capital city, New Delhi, with a total area of 1,138sq. kms, core area of 520.82 sq.kms, and the buffer area of 797.72 sq. kms. Temperature varies from 4 degree - 42 degree Celsius.

It has been found that many protected areas were originally set-aside for recreational purposes rather then explicitly for conservation (Runte, 1987; Leader-Williams et al., 1990).

Tourism is the biggest earner for Corbett National Park. The excess and massive over carrying capacity of tourists have a large impact on the park. Ways to remove ethical pressure and attach business to a certain green label are ways people are marketing themselves. One of this is Ecotourism. Any destination management operator will promote him/herself as an ethical ecotourism follower.

I think why that is……

Ecotourism was said to be a new phenomenon which came to the scene in the early 1970’s. It consists of traveling to and visiting natural areas, the features of the landscape, flora and fauna as well as involving local people so that they could have socio-economic benefits from this process. This also implies having strict guidelines for minimum negative impact on the environment.

A decade saw the rise of a global environmental movement and a convergence of demand for a sustainable and socially responsible form of tourism (Honey, 2003). In practice, Thomlinson & Getz (1996) found that the terms ecotourism and cultural tourism are often being used merely as marketing tools (Ashley & Roe, 1998). When business is the main driving force behind ecotourism it is not surprising that the ventures that emerge may serve to alienate, rather than benefit, local communities (Scheyvens, 1999).

In 1999, Hector Ceballos-Lascuráin, the well-known Mexican architect, conservationist and founder of the word ecotourism, declared that “Ecotourism is no longer a mere concept or subject of wishful thinking”. On the contrary, ecotourism has become a global reality, in which there seems to be few countries in the world in which some type of ecotourism development or discussion in not presently taking place (Honey, 1999). In 2002, The Quebec Declaration (UNEP/WTO) suggested five criteria to define ecotourism, which are: nature-based product, minimal impact management, environmental education; and contribution to conservation and the local community. Moreover, the UN decelerating 2002 as the International Year for Ecotourism signified this “global reality”.

Inter-relating these lines mentioned about ecotourism to the scene currently present in Corbett and the answers are somewhat shocking. I noticed a lot of resorts were not putting anything back to local communities but everyone promoted them as they were doing so. A lot of complaints from resorts about other resorts playing loud music at times of Christmas, holidays and weekends. It was noticed that there were local Ramnagar disc jockeys that were hired for visitor’s entertainment. I remember reading a report by Mr. Debi Goenka (Hon. Treasurer. Bombay Natural History Society) where the report was on Protecting the Corbett National Park (with help from the Central Empowered Committee) where he wrote in his recommendations of No loudspeakers should be permitted with the reserved forest area. I think it is important to think why he said that. Well his report focused on reserved forest land and yes resorts are a far distance away but sound travels and especially at nights. Maybe Noise disturbance would cause massive change in animal behavior.

This act of commercialisation is causing a massive problem environmentally, ecologically, socio-culturally and even economically.

It was seen that resorts and destination management operators sold Corbett as a honeymoon package. Sold a wildlife destination as a corporate destination where team building and conferences were more important then actually protecting the species for the sustainability of the destination and for future clients.

What surprises me is any and every resort in a lot of wildlife destinations is doing everything to save the tiger. They seem to know more about the tiger then anything else and that’s because the tiger is a selling product. Resorts should focus more on what they really could look into like problems with their own waste water management, garbage disposal and helping to support communities who have a direct effect with coexistence and wildlife. Tourism needs to look into their own products and work on reinvesting in their old products.

Half the battle in conservation is to find a balance between local community and external interests. It is like the game of blocks that children play where they have to put the right block in the right slot. Conservation, in other words, may or may not be in a community’s interest, and local community activities may or may not be compatible with those of outside conservationists. The role is to form local initiatives in which local and outside forces work together.

The time has come to think whether ecotourism at Corbett is mainly ‘Ecological’ tourism or ‘Economical’. I would prefer visitors to have an approach of responsible tourism. The opportunities are endless…