Too many tourists in Himalayas; new report presses for pre-empting disasters

Too many tourists in Himalayas; new report presses for pre-empting disasters

Subject: Geography

Section: Mapping

Context: There is a need to pre-empt the disastrous effects of unregulated tourism and learn lessons from the over-exploited tourist destinations in the Himalayan region

What is the impact of the tourism in the Himalayan region?

• Demand for tourism has increased pressure on hill stations and is becoming a major concern for change in land use and land cover
• Managing tourism within available civic amenities and infrastructural carrying capacity within the threshold has been a challenge
• An example is Ladakh, an area with water deficiency. It is mostly dependent on snow / glacial melt and flow of River Indus.
• Individual water consumption by a resident is 75 litres per day on an average, whereas a tourist consumes about 100 litres / day
• Built-up area in Himachal Pradesh increased from 4.7 per cent to 15.7 per cent during 1989-2012.
• The number of tourists in the region also swelled to 2.8 million from 140,000 from 1980-2011, highlighting the excessive pressure of tourism in the region
• The number of hotels also increased over the years, indicating a loss of greenery and biodiversity in the region

Carrying capacity:

Carrying capacity is the maximum number, density, or biomass of a population that a specific area can support sustainably

What need to be done?

• Protected areas in Ladakh like Hemis National Park, Changthang Cold Desert Sanctuary and Karakoram Sanctuary require vigilance and regular patrolling to reduce unwanted wildlife-tourist interaction as well as habitat destruction due to off-road driving and encroachment
• Prior monitoring of carrying capacity in terms of tourist inflow of vehicles, air quality and solid waste management largely in the Kashmir region, or pilgrims visiting the holy cave of Amarnath and Vaishno Devi in Jammu need to be done to ensure quality tourism
• Establishment of regulated tourism practices with promotion of sustainable agendas is required for the Indian Himalayan region (IHR)
• This can be achieved through maintenance of proper tourist capacity in every tourist place of the IHR
• This can also help in minimising mainly the generation of solid waste and pollution level in the water, air and destruction of biodiversity
• Appropriate mechanisms should be devised to help achieve tourism growth in the landscape in a sustainable manner — having minimal impact on biodiversity, while providing sustainable livelihood options for the local community

Mapping:

Hemis National Park

• It is a high-altitude national park in Ladakh. Globally famous for its snow leopards, it is believed to have the highest density of them in any protected area in the world.
• It is the only national park in India that is north of the Himalayas, the largest notified protected area in India (largest National Park) and is the second largest contiguous protected area, after the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve and surrounding protected areas
• The park is bounded on the north by the banks of the Indus River, and includes the catchments of Markha, Sumdah and Rumbak, and parts of the Zanskar Range

 Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary

• It is a high-altitude wildlife sanctuary located in the Ladakhi adjunct of the Changthang plateau in the Leh District of the union territory of Ladakh.
• It is important as one of the few places in India with a population of the Kiang or Tibetan Wild Ass, as well as the rare Black-necked Crane