India’s plans to ban tiger tourism could signal the end for the tiger

Tiger traffic jams are bad for tiger conservation. Photo credit EMB Books

Will banning tiger tourism help save the tiger?

May 2010. India's National Tiger Conservation Authority has announced that it plans to phase out tourism in its 37 tiger reserves. As more and more ‘luxury' lodges are built in tiger habitat, and across tiger corridors, and more and more people crowd into those tiger reserves where it is still possible to see tigers, it is undeniable that this has a negative affect on tiger conservation.

Ban the tourists - tigers will thrive?
So the simple solution is to remove the tourist resorts, and indeed to remove the tourists. Open the tiger corridors ban the crowds and the jeeps, and the tigers will thrive. Possibly, but only in the very short term.

Why banning tiger tourism won't work

• Will banning tourists reduce the demand from China? - No.
• Will banning tourists make it harder for poachers? - Just the opposite.
• Will banning tourists improve the lot of the people who live around the tiger reserves? - I can't think of any incidence when reducing someone's income will inspire them to help more.
• Will reducing the income of the park authorities help protect the tigers? - Seems unlikely.

Why are tigers disappearing?
Tigers are being killed for their body parts to supply the sick demand from China. Some of their behaviour patterns may be disturbed by too many tourists, but tourists will not reduce tiger numbers drastically. Tigers are killed by poachers, who are paid by middlemen. The poachers don't get paid a vast amount, but enough to make taking the risk worthwhile. But banning tourists will not reduce poaching, probably just the opposite.

Worst of both worlds
Unregulated tiger tourism is undoubtedly detrimental to tigers. Unregulated resort building is at least as bad, and probably worse. However the problem here is not the tourism, but the ‘unregulated' bit. There is too much corruption which allows the ‘unregulated'. However if there is no money coming in from tourism, the local villagers, forest guards, wildlife rangers and the tiger authorities will all have a reduced income. The one place that they may be able to supplement their income from will be the poachers, whose job will already have been made easier by the fact that there are no tourists with their attendant guides patrolling the park in large numbers. Sort out the ‘unregulated' and you will go a long way to sorting out the problem.

Removing funding from wildlife protection won't help protect the last few tigers in India. Photo credit Paul Goldstein/Wildlife Extra

Tigers are pests - Very dangerous ones
Not all tigers are killed by poachers. Some are killed by local villagers defending their own property, and families. If you live in a small village on the edge of tiger habitat, and occasionally, or more often, a tiger or two wanders through the village, eats your goat, cow, or possibly even a family member, you are not very likely to think kindly of the tiger. So several tigers are killed every year by villagers, understandably, protecting their property and their families.

However in a few places, where some members of the community are employed as forest guards, or perhaps in a tourist resort, there may be a little more understanding of the tiger pests on their doorstep. There are some schemes that pay the villagers for any livestock that is killed by tigers, and in some villages tourists help fund schools, and even clinics.

Zero funding for tiger protection
There are no official figures, but we believe that some 500,000 tourists visit tiger reserves in India every year. The revenue that this generates would be very sorely missed by the authorities and around the reserves, and I haven't heard any details of anyone offering to replace this income from any other source.

The consequence of the decimation of tourism in Zimbabwe. Courtesy of Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force

The tourists disappear first, then the wildlife - Look at Zimbabwe
I can't think of any instance anywhere in the world where banning tourism has worked in favour of the wildlife, but plenty where tourism has saved species, habitats and whole environments. Compare the plight of Zimbabwe's wildlife with that of other countries. 20 years ago Zimbabwe was one of the top destinations in Africa for wildlife tourism, and the wildlife was as healthy as anywhere in Africa. Then when Mugabe lost the plot, tourists stopped visiting Zimbabwe, and as a consequence the wildlife there has been decimated. By poachers, by corrupt officials and by hungry people. The loss of tourists was a direct cause of the decimation of the wildlife of Zimbabwe, the tourists disappeared first, and the wildlife followed.

Wildlife tourism isn't perfect, but it is the best solution we have.