Go green, sustain tourism

By Anurag

TOURISM is a 20th century phenomenon. The word tourism was unknown to the English language until the early 19th century. Thanks to the technological progress, particularly in the transport sector, coupled with the emergence of the middle class with time and money to spare for recreation, the modern holiday industry, called tourism, has come into its own. We live in an era of mass tourism as distinct from elite or class tourism.

Today tourism is a major item of international trade. As the world’s largest export industry, according to the World Tourism Organisation (WTO), a whopping 567 million tourists worldwide helped generate about $ 373 billion and provide direct or indirect employment to 10.7 per cent of the global workforce in 1995. Domestic tourism is supposed to be nine times more beneficial than international tourism. Tourism in India is the highest earner of foreign exchange after garments and gems.

But the unbridled growth of mass tourism has not been an unmixed blessing. It did give a fillip to the national income, employment opportunities and dispersion of development to underdeveloped areas. Regarded as a tertiary industry, tourism has brought about socio-economic empowerment through the development of communication, transportation, accommodation and assorted consumer services. The process of cross-fertilisation of host-tourist cultures also has its beneficial and baleful influences.

It is becoming increasingly evident that the rapidly growing tourism damages not only the landscape but also the indigenous way of life, culture and the value-system. Tourism can degenerate into vandalism as it did in some of the islands of the Mediterranean. Spain has suffered irreparably at the hands of tourists.Mountaineering expeditions are known to leave in their trail widespread deforestation, pasture destruction and accumulation of litter on the slopes of the Himalayas. The degeneration of the Dal Lake in Srinagar cannot but reduce it to a pond in the next five decades. Increasing levels of crime and sexual exploitations of the host population in the garb of hospitality are other facets of degenerative tourism.

Worst affected by the mass tourism in the environment comprising mountains, rivers, coastal areas, flora and fauna. The WTO has identified five vulnerable areas:

(a) Alteration of the ecological situation of regions where the environment was previously in good condition from the natural, cultural and human viewpoints;

(b) Speculative pressure leading to destruction of landscape and natural habitat;

(c) The occupation of space and creation of activities producing irreconcilable land use conflicts;

(d) Damage to traditional values in the zones concerned and a lowering of standards on the human scale in existing developments; and

(e) Progressive overcapacity which drains the environmental quality of the areas concerned.

It is in this context that the concept of green tourism assumes significance. That is tourism should be promoted and developed in harmony with natural resources. It should be consistent with its environment and arise naturally from the activities that are natural to the area. Constant and continuous regeneration of environment should offset its degeneration for the sake of sheer sustainability.

The Worldwide Fund for Nature-India has recommended eco-tourism as an alternative tourism. Its avowed objective would be to attain a balance between nature and human beings to ensure their co-existence. There has always been a natural conflict between ecology and economy. The government should take a conscious decision that whenever there is a clash between tourism and ecology, the latter will prevail.Eco-tourism has to be a participatory process. In India tourism is a state subject.

Some tourist countries stand seriously affected by tourism-related pollution. Two-thirds of the Italian beaches have been polluted by sewage and garbage. Israel and Lebanon are also in the same boat. The lions of the national parks of Africa have their feeding and breeding activities interrupted by the curious camera-clicking tourists. Ever since the high altitude desert zones of the western Himalays have been opened to uncontrolled tourism, their fragile eco system has been so much upset that subsidised supply of firewood is arranged from places as far as Chandigarh. With the removal of grass and junipers, the wild herbivores and several endangered species are forced to remain in the higher reaches of the Himalays even during the winter months.

Didn’t the mercury rise to above 30 degree celsius at Shimla this summer? Reeling under acute shortage of water, the overcrowded and overbuilt Shimla has already begun to shed its old-world charm and mystique. The fate and state of other tourist towns may be different in degree but not in substance. A socio-economic ecological cost-benefit analysis is the crying need of the hour.

Beard tickles vanity

By I.M.Soni

DO those keeping a beard think it enhances their masculine appeal? Or does it mask their real personality? Anyway, those who conceal their chin or cheek reveal their psyche.

Since Adam, the beard has been held in high esteem as a mark of full manhood. The lad and the eunuch are beardless. Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing says. "He that hath no beard is less than man, and he that is less than a man; I am not for him." To my mind, this is somewhat prejudiced because Shakespeare himself was bearded. Those who correlate the beard with masculinity overlook that it is not the beard but the man behind the beard that matters.

No wonder, kings, warriors, philosophers, painters, writers, nobles and rogues have fondly grown beards. They grew it as fondly as did women their tossable tresses. They curled and oiled their beards. Some parted them in the middle as women part their crowning glory. They are known to have spent hours on perfuming, starching and dusting the beard with perfumed powder. Some used irons and quills to curl them.

A luxurious face-growth was regarded as a mark of integrity as will as masculinity. There was a time when man’s virility was judged from length, thickness and curliness of his beard.

Beard has also been associated with valour. It was considered a privilege of the soldier. Alexander once ordered his soldiers to shave off their beards fearing his enemy would seize them by their beards. Army officers seldom keep beards but naval officers do support them.

The modern man has his own reasons for growing it. The primary one is to be traced to one of the dictionary meanings of the word. Beard means ‘to oppose?’ The modern man, by growing a beard, is registering his opposition to the increasing dominance of the fair sex. He realises that the father-figure is getting reduced to a figure head. "I protest," his beard seems to shriek.

He knows that the woman who claims she can do everything man can, cannot grow a beard! The beard is the ultimate weapon in man’s armoury for use in the battle of sexes. By growing a beard, he is ‘bearding the lioness’?

It lends a touch of casualness and eccentricity to creative people. But many latter day writers and ‘intellectuals’ support funny-looking growths on the chin or cheek in imitation of immortals as if the latter wrote, composed or painted with their beards!

The razor-and-lotion culture gained currency in the 18th century when French stage actors began appearing clean-shaved. The modern ‘gentleman’ does not like to be seen with tuft of hair growing on his chin and cheek unless he is sick, mourning or posing for an ad.

Some men, in a fit of fondness, grow beards but soon get tired. They are really not interested. They do it because they want others to talk about it. Once the comments or compliments dry up, they revert to the rituals of the razor.

Albert Allies has observed: "Men who want to be different but do not know how exactly or why, find an easy way out by growing beards. Some want to hide chins, others their skin blemishes. Some really believe that a beard adds to their masculine appeal."

He further maintains that the exhibitionist female likes a bearded man because she wants to be one up with her traditionalist sisters. That is why she makes her man shave off after he is hooked in her matrimonial trap.

Some women, like men to grow beards because they like to struggle through ‘dense bushes’ before reaching the ‘picnic spot!’ This adds to their sense of conquest and fulfilment. Because of the struggle, they become involved and passionate.

There is a difference in the attitude of mother and wife to a man’s beard. The wife likes it because it tickles her, and her husband’s vanity. The mother dislikes it because it makes the son look grown-up. No mother wants the son to grow up into a man enough to belong to his wife!

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