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Sustainable Bird Based Tourism in India’s Remote North-East Frontier- by D.Mohan and R. Athreya

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Arunachal Pradesh is the most biodiverse Indian state situated in its north-east with thesecond highest breeding bird diversity in the world. Despite this, the area did not exist inbird-based tourism map till as late as a few years back owing to remoteness and lack ofproper infrastructure and documentation. An innovative community based ecotourisminitiative started in 2006, has catapulted one of the protected areas, namely Eagle-nestWildlife Sanctuary of this state to one of the top birding destination of the world in a veryshort time. After a thorough documentation of the birdlife of the area by a qualifiedresearchers’ team, basic infrastructure was created through grants from external donors.Today the high quality low volume bird based ecotourism is completely managed bylocal Bugun tribal community and provides employment to few locals besidescontributing to Bugun community welfare funds in a sustainable manner without anyexternal support. The community today takes pride in the activity and also ensures thatthe forests are well preserved. The innovative aspect of the initiative is a completemanagement by the community with no support from the Government, making it trulysustainable.

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Page 1: Sustainable Bird Based Tourism in India’s Remote North-East Frontier- by D.Mohan and R. Athreya

Volume 3 · Number 1 · 2011

23

Sustainable Bird Based Tourism in India’sRemote North-East Frontier

Dhananjai Mohan and Ramana Athreya1Professor, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. [email protected]

2Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, [email protected]

ABSTRACTArunachal Pradesh is the most biodiverse Indian state situated in its north-east with thesecond highest breeding bird diversity in the world. Despite this, the area did not exist inbird-based tourism map till as late as a few years back owing to remoteness and lack ofproper infrastructure and documentation. An innovative community based ecotourisminitiative started in 2006, has catapulted one of the protected areas, namely Eagle-nestWildlife Sanctuary of this state to one of the top birding destination of the world in a veryshort time. After a thorough documentation of the birdlife of the area by a qualifiedresearchers’ team, basic infrastructure was created through grants from external donors.Today the high quality low volume bird based ecotourism is completely managed bylocal Bugun tribal community and provides employment to few locals besidescontributing to Bugun community welfare funds in a sustainable manner without anyexternal support. The community today takes pride in the activity and also ensures thatthe forests are well preserved. The innovative aspect of the initiative is a completemanagement by the community with no support from the Government, making it trulysustainable.

1. BACKGROUNDThere are more than 10,000 species of birds in the world [i,ii]. Their interesting behavior patterns, oftencolorful appearance, the ability to fly, varied and sweet vocalizations and omnipresence have madethem especially attractive to humans. As a result a large number of people pursue the hobby of bird-watching. This hobby has almost assumed the status of industry in some countries like the USA wherebirdwatchers were estimated to have spent US$25 billion in 2000 [iii] and US$87 billion in 2006 [iv].In Britain where almost a third of the population indulges in this hobby to a greater or lesser extent, asingle NGO, the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, has nearly 1 million members.

The Indian subcontinent hosts nearly 13% of the world’s bird species [v]. Even though the numberof birdwatchers is still low in India it is steadily increasing. Sen (2010) estimates nearly 45000 Indianbirdwatchers presently active in India. In addition a substantial number of birdwatchers visit India fromother countries particularly from Europe and North America.

Organized bird-watching in India was initiated in the wetlands of Keoladeo Ghana National Park,more popularly known as Bharatpur Bird sanctuary. Originally a duck hunting reserve of the princelystate of Bharatpur, it became a sanctuary in 1956 and was subsequently upgraded to a National park in1981. The sanctuary is synonymous with bird tourism in India in the popular consciousness. Followingits example in conservation of wetlands and their biodiversity, a large number of wetland birdsanctuaries were set up in India (e.g. Nawabganj, Patna and Lakh Bahosi Bird Sanctuaries in UttarPradesh state; Sultanpur and Bhindawas Bird Sanctuaries in Haryana state). However, few of themcould become significant bird tourism destinations. The growing recognition of the attraction of forestbirds in the 1980s and 1990s added an important dimension to the growth of bird tourism in India.Organized foreign bird tour groups started visiting forest destinations and documenting the birdlifetherein to facilitate bird-watching. The Government assisted this process in emerging destinations likethe Corbett Tiger Reserve landscape by training nature guides in the hitherto neglected skills of bird-watching. Recognizing and catering to a growing market Kazmierczak & Singh [vi] came out with thefirst ever guide to Indian bird-watching destinations covering over 75 locations across the country.

Ironically, the richest area of the country in forest bird diversity remained largely untouched by thesedevelopments. Though Kazmierczak & Singh [6] described a few locations in the north-east India, only

Page 2: Sustainable Bird Based Tourism in India’s Remote North-East Frontier- by D.Mohan and R. Athreya

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