M A I N   N E W S

Tiger tourism ban to continue, for now
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, October 9
The Supreme Court today permitted the Centre to notify within a week its fresh guidelines for tiger conservation and regulating tiger tourism. A Bench comprising Justices AK Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar, however, made it clear that the state governments would be free to challenge the new guidelines if they felt these were against their interest.

The Bench said it would consider modification of its July 24 ban on tiger tourism in the core areas of all tiger reserves after the Centre’s notification that envisaged throwing open 20 per cent of the core areas to tourists with a lot of restrictions. It would hear the case on October 16 for the purpose.

Under the revised guidelines, tourists would have to maintain a minimum distance of more than 20m from all wildlife and for those on vehicles the distance would be 50m. Further, vehicles would not be allowed to remain at any wildlife sighting point for more than 15 minutes.

Tourists would also have to shell out a “conservation fee.” The fresh guidelines were aimed at turning wildlife tourism into “eco-tourism” with a greater involvement of the local people, the government has told the SC.

After getting the ban imposed by the SC, the Centre had taken a U-turn following protests by the state governments and local communities and pressure from political quarters.

However, some states are against even the fresh guidelines, mainly citing shrines located in forest areas. Kerala said any proposal to restrict people’s movement in the forest areas with tiger population would affect the 40 million pilgrims who visited the ‘Sabarimala’ shrine in the state every year. The shrine, located inside the Periyar tiger reserve, should be exempted from the guidelines, Kerala said.

The Big Cat story

• Under the revised guidelines, tourists would have to maintain a minimum distance of more than 20m from all wild animals. For those on vehicles, the distance would be 50m. Further, vehicles would not be allowed to remain at any wildlife sighting point for more than 15 minutes
• The Centre has been told to notify within a week its fresh guidelines for tiger conservation and regulating tiger tourism
• The state governments would be free to challenge the new guidelines if they felt these were against their interest