Tourism at Protected Areas: Sustainability or Policy Crunch?

Although tourism and protected areas seem to be mutually exclusive, protected areas popularly attract tourism all over the world. As such, tourism integration is perceived as a good strategy for a better management of protected areas. But this policy of integrating tourism in protected areas requires an understanding of the distributional aspects of its benefits regarding who are the ultimate beneficiaries and how this mechanism or process is supposed to work. As far as the policy is concerned, it mainly cares for the numbers in terms of tourists' visits, revenue generation and conservation of species. If policymakers can take care of both the allocative and the distributive parts of tourism by providing direct benefits to the people living in the protected areas, then a sustainable management of ecotourism in protected areas may be possible. This article takes a case of Bhitarkanika National Park, Kendrapara, Odisha, and tries to study the tourism aspects associated with this park from the perspectives of different stakeholders, addressing the policy issues of sustainability and management. Three important aspects of sustainability of tourism at protected areas are suggested through this study-provision of start-up capital, facilitating training to local people who are linked with tourism at the site or are interested in hosting up tourism and strengthening institutional set up for better management, networking and monitoring of tourism and conservation at the site.