February 2016
By Punya Srivastava
The emerging trend of eco-tourism involves travelling to natural areas while conserving the environment, sustaining the well-being of locals, and imbibing a fresh educative perspective, says Punya Srivastava
As I lay on a spotless patch of white sand on the banks of the gushing Ganga, I couldn’t help but marvel at the conspicuous absence of the otherwise ubiquitous trash found at tourist destinations. I had gone for a one night camping and rafting trip to Rishikesh around three years back. Despite the teeming people, the campsite was pristinely clean. The debris of liquor bottles and plastic wrappers from the previous night of bonhomie and merry-making around a crackling bonfire, was put away in a carry bag and taken back for proper disposal by our tour facilitator.
That was my first experience of a pro-environment vacation. I simply loved the feel of living under the skies, in movable tents. The meals were made of locally sourced ingredients. We used a measured amount of water for our ablutions and saw to it that we didn’t leave our traces behind. It was one of the most enriching travel trips of my life, cradled in the lap of nature. I also was at an eco-resort on a recent trip to Goa which adhered to many of the guidelines of eco-tourism. The more I travel, the more I discover such places.
Just like other spheres of life, the travel and tourism sector too is reinventing itself in the New Age – getting more conscious about its impact on earth and its depleting resources. It is heartening to come across ventures that are not merely profit-oriented but also strive to replenish what they take. Eco-tourism is much more than visiting a natural vista; today it is about making efforts to keep that vista unpolluted and maintaining its indigenous flair.
According to the International Ecotourism Society (IES), eco-tourism is defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education of both staff and guests.”
Many enthusiasts have started thinking holistically and have come up with resorts and home stays that offer you lavish hospitality without leaving behind humongous carbon footprints. Moreover, you also get to mingle with the locals and enrich yourself with exciting experiences, which you can relate to your children or grandchildren on cozy Sunday afternoons.
Eco-enthusiasts
Kerala-based Praveen Muraleedharan is one such enthusiast. “I have been an environment aficionado since childhood. Moreover, I had a tour company by the name of Eco Ventures India which conducted leisure, adventure, photography, educational, cultural and special interest tours with a focus on nature and wildlife conservation,” he says. Since 2014, Praveen and his business partner, Manoj, have been running Ecotones Camp, a boutique resort, in Munnar. According to him, Ecotone is a transitional zone between two distinct natural communities. A Youtube video of this gorgeous resort on his website takes you on a virtual tour of this estate and is breathtaking enough to seed a longing in your heart.
Praveen was motivated to start Ecotones Camp because of a lack of pro-environment hospitality options in the country. Serendipitously, he found a perfect piece of land in Munnar, a prime tourist destination, which he then converted into a property boasting of ethnic mud huts built by the local Muthuvan tribesmen and a plantation walk consisting of indigenous flora. The resort offers a multitude of activities which are bound to entice weary city folks, like photography, birdwatching, nature trails, and mountain biking.
Medha Sahasrabudhe is another young entrepreneur who, along with her mother, runs an eco-homestay in the verdant lap of Western Ghats on ecotourism principles. An interior designer by profession, Medha studied ecology and environment from the Ecological Society, Pune, and thus made her foray into pro-environment hospitality with Atithi Parinay in 2010. The homestay, situated in Kotawade, in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, offers ethnic mud and tree houses, traditional food made by local women inducted as kitchen staff, the warmth of a home away from home, and an abundance of natural beauty to soak into. The guests are welcome to share tea and stories with her and her mother, Vasudha Sahasrabudhe, any time of the day.
Goodness on the menu
For a property to qualify as an ecotourist place, it needs to follow certain guidelines; the first and foremost being minimal physical, social, behavioral, and psychological impacts on the place and the local people.
“I serve only authentic traditional Konkani food in my homestay. This ensures manifold benefits – reduction in the amount of energy and resources spent on sourcing non-local food items, inclusion of local community members as cooking staff, traditional and cost-effective organic meals with raw foods procured from our very own plantation,” says Medha. She doesn’t provide bottled water, as is the norm, to her guests. “We also have a water treatment system to use the recycled water for our vegetable patch. And I make sure that the guests take back all the plastic trash with them as I do not have the required facility to recycle plastic waste,” she adds.
Ramesh C Jangid, a pioneer in sustainable tourism in Rajasthan, shares how his venture Apani Dhani Eco Lodge, Nawalgarh, imbibed the guideline of ‘delivering memorable interpretative experiences to visitors that help raise sensitivity to the host countries’ ‘political, environmental, and social climates’ as laid down by the IES.
Started in 1990, his eco lodge is a family-run project which offers eco-friendly accommodation to individuals and small groups through seven bungalows, a family room and a small independent house for rent. “We serve home-made vegetarian fare. Most of the ingredients come from the two hectares of farming land where we do organic agriculture. We grow cereals, lentils, and seasonal vegetables,” says Jangid. The guests are offered different activities with locals to discover the area and its culture through walks, guided visits, excursions in the countryside, and workshops on art and handicraft. “These activities are designed to bring extra revenues to the local community,” he says, adding, “Five per cent of the turnover from the room rent is invested in local projects in education, environment and local heritage conservation.”
“We have opened our kitchen to the guests. They are welcome, and often encouraged to go vegetable picking in our organic plantation, come back and cook on their own with assistance from our cooks. This ensures a very healthy give-and-take of cultural knowledge between the local community and the guests. The increased bonhomie is a big bonus,” says Praveen. Moreover, like Medha, Praveen too doesn’t offer packaged drinking water to guests but uses RO system to purify groundwater. This saves a lot of precious resources that would have gone into packaging a one litre bottle of mineral water; in the long run lightening the individual carbon footprint. “We make the guests understand our motive behind not using packaged water,” he adds. Ecotones also suggest that their guests use their mountain bikes to commute locally while staying with them. This builds a proximity between the guests and their environment which includes the local community too. “They learn to ‘sightsee’ on an altogether different level,” remarks Praveen.
Motivated lives
For Mumbai-based Vinod Sreedhar, Founder, Journeys with Meaning travel company, journeys are more of’learning experiences through the medium of travel as opposed to the more mainstream tour-packages. He feels that learning occurs far more deeply when one spends time in places and with people who are a part of one’s travel destination. His travel packages are more about igniting discussions on ecological issues. “We could sit in the city and watch a powerful film about glaciers melting due to climate change. But consider the impact when you actually see a glacier in the Himalayas, sit on the banks of a raging mountain stream flooded with glacial melt water, and have an insightful conversation with village elders about the changes they see today in their environment compared to their experiences from 50 years ago,” says Sreedhar. His company provides the experience of eating fresh organic vegetables plucked from the kitchen gardens in homestays, spending time in some of India’s most beautiful forests, understanding their role in our survival, learning from inspiring people and organisations, having stimulating conversations over a range of issues and ideas, and most importantly, reconnecting with parts of ourselves and the planet that we have lost touch with.
The monopoly and unfair distribution of tourism income in the Rajasthan of the 1980s, as well as the negative impact of mass tourism in the region pushed Jangid to start a different type of tourism in the state. According to him, luxury hotels and resorts with bath tub and swimming pool facilities as well as lush green turf were exhausting the scanty natural resources of the Shekhawati region; a lot of plastic garbage was produced by the travellers; luxury AC buses and cars were plying through Shekhawati increasing the air pollution in the area and the prices of commodities.
Somewhat similar is the story of Himanshu Pradeep Kalia, a social entrepreneur who set up Katernia Eco Huts in the lesser known Katernia wildlife sanctuary in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh. His aim is to promote eco and wildlife tourism in Katernia ghat. “In 2012, after quitting my job and getting a degree of entrepreneurship management from XLRI, Jamshedpur, I backpacked and solo travelled to many places and one fine day came to Katernia ghat jungle in my home town of Bahraich. I was astonished and mesmerised by the untouched beauty of this raw and virgin forest. I spotted a leopard taking a leisurely walk in my presence! I got the idea of establishing Katernia ghat as an international ecotourism destination while standing on the bank of river Gerua. That is the exact place where my Ecohuts are standing today,” he shares. Himanshu lived in the forest villages for around a year and eventually, wading through many difficulties, procured a piece of land to start his dream project.
Involving local community in managing tourism to disperse its benefits to local people, and promoting and nurturing the culture of Tharus, the only tribals of Uttar Pradesh, are two of his most significant motives. “I also wanted to make my hometown Bahraich a global tourist destination; to let the world know and appreciate the untouched and unexplored beauty of this part of the country,” he adds. His Ecohuts offer traditional mud huts with attached toilets. However, the star attraction of his package is the jungle safari which serves to sensitise visitors towards wildlife and environment, “Not in a theoretical way but by practical exposure to the very habitat in which they live,” says Himanshu.
“The concept of on season-off season has been made redundant by this alternative way of sustainable tourism since people come to us for experiences, and not merely for sightseeing,” adds Praveen.
The challenges
“It is very challenging to have a proper eco-friendly resort in India. The first thing people do after acquiring the land is to level it by felling the trees. We didn’t do any such thing. The trees were left as is,” says Praveen. This resulted in a roughened path leading towards their property but the duo were persistent about not altering the landscape in any way. Another challenge is to market such unconventional resorts to the traditional tour and travel operators as most of the ‘seemingly’ eco-resorts are merely faux eco-friendly ornamental properties.
“I have come across many small and medium enterprises as well as reputed agencies proposing responsible tours in India; but on the ground, things are rather different and sometimes far from being responsible,” says Jangid. This is true for ecotourism as there is an ongoing real trend of ‘green washing’.
Another challenge is to bring a shift in the expectations and mindsets of the travellers. “The local labour that I commissioned to build the tree and mud houses were wary of the success of my homestay. One of them, while working on my dining area which is a grass and bamboo structure, even told me, ‘Madam, duniya aage ja rahi hai aur aap peechhe.’” says Medha. The biggest challenge, according to her, is to urge guests to explore beyond the norm while also being a good host. “Many people visiting us insist on having packaged mineral water only, without paying attention to the fact that the boiled ground water is as good as the so-called mineral water. So enslaved are we to the marketing gimmicks that we have stopped listening to our inherent logical judgment,” she adds.
“These experiences are for people who are open to stepping out from their comfort zones and making a connect with the environment; for nature lovers, people who want to explore the real, traditional, rural India. It is for those who want to eat local food cooked on chulhas, chutneys made on sil battas, batti-choka made on cow dung cakes, vegetables picked directly from fields; for those who are not wary of sleeping beneath the night sky, and not too fussy about comfort,” says Himanshu.
A new experience
Still the benefits, the learning and experiences people get through ecoturism are so immense, that once people get a taste of it they want to do it again and again. In a nutshell it broadens the mental horizon of the tourist, helping him undergo major transformation.
“I have been devoted to the promotion of sustainable tourism since last 30 years, which is, a wider holistic concept. Tourism should be responsible, conserve the environment and improve the well-being of local community not only when travellers visit natural vistas, but also man-made destinations. Sustainable tourism could certainly contribute to a better world,” says Jangid. He recounts various instances of tourists, especially Westerners, being thoroughly influenced by his way of living. Some even claimed that the experience ‘opened their eyes’, especially with regards to the water conservation practices.
“It was a delightful experience to stay at Apani Dhani – to be welcomed by the extended family – but mostly because it is extraordinary to see how a vision for the common good can be ‘put to work’ in such a fine way,” says Cynthia T, a guest from UK visiting the homestay in 2014.
Ramesh Sharma, who has been to two trips with Sreedhar (Ladakh and Meghalaya), vouches for the life changing experiences provided by this alternative travelling experience. “These trips actually opened my eyes to ecological issues, and made me appreciate the unparalleled beauty of nature. I stayed with locals, understood local customs, traditions, and issues in an economically and culturally globalised world. It truly was a humbling and learning experience for me that made me break away from strongly held prejudices. I was at the crossroads on a lot of personal and professional issues in my life during my first trip to Meghalaya. The trip helped me immensely in reclaiming my life,” he shares.
“We are not merely selling rooms, we are selling lifetime experiences, and people are increasingly clamouring for such experiences,” says Praveen, hinting at the promising future of eco-tourism in the country. Let us start exploring more, let us be more sensitive towards the places visited, let us walk the road less travelled.
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