Social preference of local communities towards wildlife tourism in the Indian Himalayas

Abstract

This chapter presents the attitude of mountain communities toward wildlife tourism as a livelihood option in the Nanda Devi Biosphere, India. The Reserve is a world heritage site with significant scenic, cultural, and religious value. A total of 764 interviews were conducted from 22 selected villages using semi-structured questionnaire in randomly selected households (HH). Respondents were asked to assign scores on the scale of 4-1 (four being the highest and one the lowest) to wildlife tourism in the area. About 36% HH had positive attitude toward wildlife tourism in the area and assigned scores to it. Only few respondents supported wildlife tourism as it is related to conservation of wildlife leading to increased incidence of negative interaction between local communities and wildlife. Average income was higher for the HH involved in tourism than the HH involved in other livelihood activities. It was observed that younger members of the community were more positive toward wildlife tourism related activities in the area. Similarly, HH with higher average year of schooling and without a regular income supported wildlife tourism in the area as they see it as a livelihood opportunity. Assessment of the attitude and behavior of local communities toward sustainable nature based and wildlife tourism can be used to understand the opportunities and threats that the conservation and management programs are going to face during implementation in a particular area. These issues can be dealt by addressing the issues highlighted by the local communities and considering the value local people put on flow of environmental services.