Ecological Losses of Tourism Activities in Uttarakhand
Author : Naina Srivastava
Abstract :
The Himalayan topography in Uttarakhand has emerged to be one of the most favored tourist destinations in northern part of India by attracting pilgrims to the Char Dham shrines and the adventure seekers to the valleys, ridgelines, and rivers of the area. This type of growth that has gained momentum since the formation of the state in 2000 has introduced income and jobs to a historically underdeveloped hill economy but put an increasing strain on terrain that is geologically young and seismically active. This is a review based on the published literature, which discusses the interaction between religious tourism, trekking, mountaineering, river rafting and similar adventure activities and deforestation, habitat fragmentation, the solid waste development, water pollution and slope instability in Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri, Nainital and Valley of Flowers. Special focus is placed on Kedarnath tragedy of 2013 that scientists have related to extreme rainfall coupled with glacial lake instability and decades of uncontrolled construction work along the river basins. Community-based ecotourism and regulatory measures like carrying-capacity assessment are also reviewed and seen as potential remedies to unregulated expansion. It finds that the tourism economy of the state and the ecological base are not independent entities but lie within dependent systems and the long term balance of the two is dependent on how the future development is planned, monitored and implemented.
Keywords :
Tourism, Uttarakhand, Disaster, mountain, deforestation.
