International tourist arrivals grew by 4.4% in 2011 to a total 980 million, up from 939 million in 2010, in a year characterised by a stalled global economic recovery, major political changes in the Middle East and North Africa and natural disasters in Japan. By region, Europe (+6%) was the best performer, while by subregion South-America (+10%) topped the ranking. Contrary to previous years, growth was higher in advanced economies (+5.0%) than in emerging ones (+3.8%), due largely to the strong results in Europe, and the setbacks in the Middle East and North Africa.

“International tourism hit new records in 2011 despite the challenging conditions,” said UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai. “For a sector directly responsible for 5% of the world’s GDP, 6% of total exports and employing one out of every 12 people in advanced and emerging economies alike these results are encouraging, coming as they do at a time in which we urgently need levers to stimulate growth and job creation,” he added.

Despite persistent economic uncertainty, tourist arrivals to Europe reached 503 million in 2011, accounting for 28 million of the 41 million additional international arrivals recorded worldwide. Central and Eastern Europe and Southern Mediterranean destinations (+8% each) experienced the best results. Although part of the growth in Southern Mediterranean Europe resulted from a shift in traffic away from the Middle East and North Africa, destinations in the Mediterranean also profited from improved outbound flows from markets such as Scandinavia, Germany and the Russian Federation.

Asia and the Pacific (+6%) was up 11 million arrivals in 2011, reaching a total 216 million international tourists. South Asia and South-East Asia (both +9%) benefited from strong intraregional demand, while growth was comparatively weaker in North-East Asia (+4%) and Oceania (+0.3%), partly due to the temporary decline in the Japanese outbound market.

The Americas (+4%) saw an increase of 6 million arrivals, reaching 156 million in total. South America, up by 10% for the second consecutive year, continued to lead growth. Central America and the Caribbean (both +4%) maintained the growth rates of 2010. North America, with a 3% increase, hit the 100 million tourists mark in 2011.

Africa maintained international arrivals at 50 million, as the gain of two million by Sub-Saharan destinations (+7%) was offset by the losses in North Africa (-12%). The Middle East (-8%) lost an estimated 5 million international tourist arrivals, totalling 55 million. Nevertheless, some destinations such as Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates sustained steady growth.

Available data on international tourism receipts and expenditure for 2011 closely follows the positive trend in arrivals.
Among the top ten tourist destinations, receipts were up significantly in the USA (+12%), Spain (+9%), Hong Kong (China) (+25%) and the UK (+7%). The top spenders were led by emerging source markets – China (+38%), Russia (+21%), Brazil (+32%) and India (+32%) – followed by traditional markets, with the growth in expenditure of travelers from Germany (+4%) and the USA (+5%) above the levels of previous years.

UNWTO forecasts international tourism to continue growing in 2012 although at a slower rate. Arrivals are expected to increase by 3% to 4%, reaching the historic one billion mark by the end of the year. Emerging economies will regain the lead with stronger growth in Asia and the Pacific and Africa (4% to 6%), followed by the Americas and Europe (2% to 4%). The Middle East (0% to +5%) is forecast to start to recover part of its losses from 2011.

These prospects are confirmed by the UNWTO Confidence Index. The 400 UNWTO Panel of Experts from around the globe, expects the tourism sector to perform positively in 2012, though somewhat weaker than last year.

As destinations worldwide look to stimulate travel demand under pressing economic conditions, UNWTO is urging governments to consider advancing travel facilitation, an area in which in spite of the great strides made so far there is still much room for progress. UNWTO advises countries to make the most of information and communication technologies in improving visa application and processing formalities, as well as the timings of visa issuance, and to analyze the possible impact of travel facilitation in increasing their tourism economies.

“Travel facilitation is closely interlinked with tourism development and can be key in boosting demand. This area is of particular relevance in a moment in which governments are looking to stimulate economic growth but cannot make major use of fiscal incentives or public investment,” said Mr. Rifai.

More information follow the link to UNWTO World Tourism Barometer

This article is written by Valere Tjolle, editor of the Sustainable Tourism Report Suite. The article is quoted from TravelMole and published January 2012.

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This article is quoted from EcoClub Newsletter . Follow this link to read the original article published on 2011-11-27 by Megan Epler Wood.

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Nominations can be submitted until December 31, 2011. Follow this link to fill the form and suggest the city that should be one of the New7Wonders Cities.

The nominations will be announced on January 7, 2012 and these participants will then be put to popular vote to choose the New7Wonders Cities.

This article is quoted from New7Wonders , read the original article here posted on the 13th of November 2011.

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Article by Eamonn Fitzgerald on November 11, 2011

The first count of the global vote to elect the New7Wonders of Nature has been announced. In alphabetical order, they are: Amazon, Halong Bay, Iguazu Falls, Jeju Island, Komodo, Puerto Princesa Underground River and Table Mountain.

Announcing the results at the headquarters of the New7Wonders Foundation in Zurich, Switzerland, Bernard Weber, Founder-President of New7Wonders, said: “I would like to thank the many champions, citizens, voluntary organisations, public bodies and governments that have helped promote the New7Wonders of Nature campaign over the past four years, starting with over 440 locations from over 220 countries and all the way to the 28 Finalist candidates from whom the New7Wonders of Nature have been chosen.”

The results announced this evening are provisional and based on the first count of votes completed since voting ended at 11:11 GMT this morning. The results will now be checked, validated and independently verified. Once the voting validation process is completed, in early 2012, New7Wonders will then work with the confirmed winners to organise the Official Inauguration events.

Note: It may happen that one or more of the provisional winners announced today will not be confirmed during the validation process, New7Wonders will issue a media update should this happen.

“We congratulate each of these participants on achieving their provisional New7Wonders of Nature status, and look forward to completing the confirmation process to celebrate each one in their own Official Inauguration ceremony early in 2012,” said Bernard Weber, adding, “When the New7Wonders of Nature are confirmed they will join the man-made New 7 Wonders of the World in becoming part of Global Memory for humankind for ever.”

Read more about the New 7 wonders of nature ,

This article is quoted from New7Wonders , read the original article here posted on the 11th of November 2011.

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“Tourism has an enormous potential to create jobs and economic benefit for Bangladesh,” says Leung. “At Crowdsourced Travel, we believe that this potential could be used to attack Bangladesh’s most vexing issue – poverty.”

The campaign is using a new form of fundraising called “Crowdfunding” by which a series of donors/supporters pledge small amounts. The cumulative effect of their donations allows a creative project to meet a funding goal. If the funding target is not met, the pledges are not collected and the project does not proceed.

“Crowdfunding is a severe test of audience coherence and the strength of the project creators to bind their audience into a cause,” says Leung. “If we’re not successful making our lower funding target, then we know that there are not enough resources to pursue a tourism marketing project at this point in time.”

The campaign has six weeks left and $10,000 left to raise for its lower funding goal, but has managed $5,000 in pledges so far. For more information please view the above videos and visit the campaign website. Also, a beautiful resource of photographs is being created at the Positive Light website.

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The positive momentum of the previous months held strong for Southeast Asia, which led the region with 15.5% growth during the month of June. The rebound in arrivals to Thailand (+54%) positively impacted this overall result, strongly supported by the other reporting destinations in this sub-region all of which enjoyed double-digit growth. This in turn was supported by strong travel demand within ASEAN and an increase in arrivals from China.

International arrivals growth to South Asia was a robust 12% in June, boosted by double-digit increases in inbound numbers to Nepal (+38%), the Maldives (+27%) and Sri Lanka (+20%). India maintained the same pace of growth seen in the previous month at 7%. European arrivals are amongst the main contributors to this growth.

Northeast Asia saw an improvement after posting slow growth of 0.6% in May, with a 3.7% increase in arrivals for June 2011. This growth, however, was very unevenly distributed among destinations in the sub-region. Tourism demand to Japan continued to recover, reducing losses in inbound arrivals from -63% in April to -50% in May and -36% in June. Chinese Taipei (-2%) and China (+1%) registered weak results while Hong Kong SAR (+16%), Macau SAR (+15%) and Korea (ROK) (+11%) enjoyed buoyant growth for the month, supported by the key origin market of China.

It should be remembered that even though the percentage growth rate may be relatively weaker than for other sub-regions, the sheer volume of arrivals to Northeast Asia means that 3.7% growth directly translates into more than 600,000 additional arrivals for the month.

International Arrivals to the Pacific recorded an aggregate decline of 4% in June. The main destinations of Australia (-4%) and New Zealand (-10%) showed significant decreases compared to the corresponding period last year. This downturn was caused – in part at least – by the ash cloud disruption to air travel from the Chilean volcano together with the continued effects of the earthquake in Christchurch. Nevertheless, some Pacific Island nations still managed to show positive growth, especially Palau (+63%), Vanuatu (+27%), Tahiti (+19%), Papua New Guinea (+16%), New Caledonia (+11%) and Cook Island (+8%).

January to June 2011
Of the 31 destinations reporting half-year arrivals (January to June 2011), 26 indicted positive growth, with 14 showing double-digit gains. Clear growth leaders over this period were Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand with gains of 37%, 29% and 28% respectively (January to June, year-on-year).

Collectively, these 31 destinations generated growth of 5.3% for the Asia/Pacific region during the first half of 2011. Even with the loss of almost 1.4 million arrivals to Japan, this cluster of destinations collectively not only countered that contraction but managed to add enough additional arrivals to the collective count to post a year-on-year gain of more than eight million international arrivals.

Kris Lim, Director of PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Centre, said: “The first-half year growth of around 5%, given the challenges the industry has faced so far this year underlines the resilience of travel and tourism in the Asia/Pacific region. The comparatively weaker economies of the USA and Europe mean that much of this growth has had to come from intra-regional travel and this in turn has only been possible because of the stronger regional economies and the continued expansion of airline seat capacity within the region.”

Lim added that at the current rate of growth, overall arrivals to the region will push to the 433 million mark by the end of the year, up from 408 million last year. The majority of the Asia/Pacific destinations will once again look at record numbers of arrivals, led by South Asia and Southeast Asia destinations in terms of percentage growth.

“While European arrivals remain key to South Asia’s growth, Southeast Asia will be driven by the rapidly growing China and India outbound markets while Northeast Asia is expected to see strong gains in arrivals from Southeast Asia driven by the steadily growing LCC network,” said Lim.

1)Asia/Pacific is defined as including the following sub-regions for the purposes of press releases:

For more market trends and insights, please visit www.pata.org/sub-regional-trends-2011

-ENDS-

Issued by:PATA Communications,
Bangkok, Thailand.
Tel: +66 2 658 2000
E-mail: communications@PATA.org
Online newsroom: www.pata.org/Press
Follow PATA on Twitter and Facebook

About PATA
The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) is a not-for profit membership association that acts as a catalyst for the responsible development of travel and tourism within the Asia Pacific region. This year, PATA is proud to celebrate 60 dynamic years of developing responsible tourism.

In partnership with private and public sector members, PATA enhances the sustainable growth, value and quality of travel and tourism to-from-and-within, the region. The Association provides leadership and counsel on an individual and collective basis to over 80 government, state and city tourism bodies; nearly 50 international airlines, airports and cruise lines and many hundreds of travel industry companies across the Asia Pacific region and beyond. Thousands of travel professionals belong to 39 active PATA chapters worldwide and participate in a wide range of PATA and industry events. PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Centre (SIC) offers unrivalled data and insights including Asia Pacific inbound and outbound statistics, analyses and forecasts as well as in-depth reports on strategic tourism markets. For more information, please visit www.PATA.org

This article is quoted from the newsletter PATAnews from PATA . Follow the green link to read the original article published on 2011.08.31.

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The majestic Royal Bengal Tiger is roaming near the brink of extinction. Once, the tiger ruled over a major part of the globe ranging from the Pacific to the Black Sea and from Ural Mountains to the Mountain Agung. It is an irony of fate that tiger is facing an onslaught of poaching throughout its range. The main factor contributing in the decline of cat population is habitat degradation. But poaching has put them in a vulnerable condition to survive. Right now tigers occupy only 7% of their historic range and they live in small islands of forests surrounded by a sea of human beings. Over the past few centuries tigers lost more than 80% of their natural habitats and what remain are only small fragments under heavy anthropogenic pressure.

Habitat loss: Anthropogenic disturbances envelop the forests as small pockets maintaining poor level of tiger population. In this circumstance tigers in one area can no longer breed with tigers in adjacent areas due to separation of one area from other by human settlements, infrastructures, villages, agricultural farms, roads, dams, fences and industry. Massive deforestation has forced tigers into small, scattered islands of remaining habitat. Tigers are bound to repeatedly interbreed with the same small group, eventually weakening the gene pool and leading to reproductive problems, birth defects and mutations. Consequently most tigers barely survive in tiny isolated and genetically unsustainable populations. Small islands of habitat are more accessible to poachers than continuous natural vegetation. Tigers also suffer from severe loss of natural prey due to habitat loss.

Habitat fragmentation: Large-scale habitat fragmentation is a major long-term threat to the survivability of the Royal Bengal Tiger population in the Sundarbans. At the beginning of the last century, tigers roamed across the whole Indian sub-continent. Their former range has been narrowed down due to increasing habitat loss and fragmentation. Tigers need large territories for moving, feeding, resting, preying and mating. Tigers love to reside in the larger patches. Many parts of the Sunderbans have become critically fragmented to the point where they are considered unlikely to maintain rich level of diversity.

The “edge” effect: Deforestation and degradation of forest creates many “edges”, where there were dense forests in the past. Edges are windier, drier, warmer and less shady compared to the interior forest. These changes in microclimate disturb the tigers’ distributions. The edges are treated as “ecological traps” wherein tigers are hunted by the poachers. Tigers prefer forests having medium dense canopy and few edges. Edges can be dangerous for the tigers when a forest shares an edge with agricultural lands or human settlements or suburban areas. This edge effect is frequently observed in Sharonkhola and Shyamnagar range of Sundarbans.

Destruction of riparian patches: The riparian forest is one that is located along bank of rivers, channels, lakes or other surface water bodies. The tiger uses such forests for resting, hunting, eating and drinking. Spotted deer, sambar, barking deer and wild pig are frequently visible along river bars and shorelines. The loss of riparian vegetations specially Nipa Palm (Golpata) Mangrove Date Palm (Hanthal) and Bain (Avicennia marina), has resulted in a great loss of tiger habitat in the Sundarbans.

Lack of buffer zones: There are no established buffer zones around the core zones of Sundarbans to provide further protection for the tigers. The buffer zone can provide the cats safeguard against further poaching. Buffer zones are not highly protective but limited to extract natural resources. Buffer zones are treated as imperative efforts in the conservation biology. It also provides an arena for genetic exchange between subpopulations.

Lack of tigers’ corridors: A biological corridor connects two core areas for roaming of wildlife. Tiger corridor can connect up many isolated and fragmented groups. This corridor also protects the tigers from poachers. A long tiger corridor ranging from Fatra forest of Kuakata to Shyamnagar range of Shatkhira district can boost the cats’ population and genetic diversity.

Habitat matrix: Tigers use matrix habitats for movement and feeding. The forest matrix often acts as a corridor for roaming across the landscape. They are capable of using matrix habitats, at least when large forest tracts are nearby. The surrounding matrix of the remnants serves as temporary habitats of tigers. The absence of scattered trees is hazardous for the tigers to connect the landscapes.

Territorial fight: A male tiger uses a few kilometers area for roaming and hunting, called a territory. The size of a territory depends on the abundance of prey. In Indian sub-continent, a male tiger only needs from twelve to ninety-five square kilometers, whereas it is 500 square kilometers in the Russian Far East. Female territories are usually smaller. Several tigers may use the same route at different times. Several females may live in the territory of a male. Both male and female tigers demark the territory by the alignment of rivers or canals and by spraying a mixture of urine and scent gland secretions on bushes and tree barks along their route. They also leave scratch marks on tree barks and excretory droppings on prominent places, and make ‘scrapes’ on the ground to provide olfactory and visual clues to their presence. A male protects its own territory deadly against other male tiger’s trespass and fight fiercely to keep its territory free from other male’s invasion. A male usually has more than one female in its territory. Every female guard individually its own small territory within the male’s large territory to rear cubs. Young and old males are pushed to the degraded forests where there are scarcities of prey. The stronger male adult wins the battle often killing the weaker.

Inbreeding depression: Individual female tiger loves to move freely and breed more widely. Right now tigers roam across the remaining pockets instead of wide territory. The exchange of genes is highly limited in these pockets. The subpopulations are becoming smaller and more isolated. The loss of genetic diversity causing a tremendous population reduction is one of the biggest challenges of tiger conservation.

Human-tiger conflict: Human populations are increasing much faster than the average global rate across most of the tiger habitats including the Sundarbans. Human-tiger conflict is a severe problem all over the world. As human populations expand and natural habitats shrink, people and animals are increasingly coming into conflict over living space and food. People lose their livestock and sometimes their lives. The cats are often killed by the neighbouring people as revenge or to ‘prevent’ future conflicts. This conflict not only threatens the tiger, but poses a major problem for communities living in or near tiger habitat. Most of the local communities living around tiger habitats depend on forests for various services. These increasing entrances have increased the frequency of tiger attacks in the recent time. Unsustainable activities within forests also further degrade the habitats of tigers and their prey. Tiger poaching is positively correlated with human-tiger conflict.

Climate change: As sea levels rise, Sundarbans has been overexposed to salt water. Sea level rise and coastal erosion are also shrinking the tigers’ ranges. The Sundarbans consists of low-lying swamps dotted with hundreds of small islands criss-crossed by water channels. Already it has lost 28% tiger habitat due to global warming over the last four decades. The cat loses bearing due to increased storminess. It is predicted that the cats are suffering from various diseases by drinking saline water. One-metre rise of sea level will destroy the whole ecosystem of Sunderbans.

Poaching and piracy: Illegal hunting of herbivores like deer and wild boar significantly reduces prey availability for cats. Abundance of preys has shrunk considerably over past 15 years in most parts of the world. Humans are the cause of 75%-85% mortality of tigers. Tigers are usually killed for their fur and for their body parts. These are widely used as traditional medicine despite the fact that any part of tiger’s body has no medicinal value. Tigers’ hides are being used for decoration and ceremonies by a variety of Asian cultures.

Food shortage: The tiger is facing food shortage all over the world as poaching of the spotted deer has been increased in recent years. It will be difficult for the tiger to survive with this food shortage. When it does not get sufficient prey inside the forest, it strays into locality in the vicinity and hunts cattle and also hurts or hills humans, which in turn results in counter killing of the big cats by the angry people.

The writer Dr. Md. Mizanur Rahman, a biodiversity specialist, is UNO, Mongla, Bagerhat (mizan_peroj @yahoo.com)

This article was first published in The Daily Star, Bangladesh. The original article published on 2011.09.03.

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GDP: Direct Contribution
The direct contribution of Travel &Tourism to GDP is expected to be USD44.8bn (2.1% of total GDP) in 2011, rising by 7.5% pa to USD92.7bn (2.1%) in 2021 (in constant 2011 prices).

GDP: Total Contribution
The total contribution of Travel &Tourism to GDP, including its wider economic impacts, is forecast to rise by 8.1% pa from USD103.8bn (4.8% of GDP) in 2011 to USD226.1bn (5.1%) by 2021.

Employment: Direct Contribution
Travel & Tourism is expected to support directly 28,437,000 jobs (4.3% of total employment) in 2011, rising by 2.1% pa to 35,008,000 jobs (4.5%) by 2021.

Employment: Total Contribution
The total contribution of Travel & Tourism to employment, including jobs indirectly supported by the industry, is forecast to rise by 2.4% pa from 45,595,000 jobs (6.9% of total employment) in 2011 to 57,757,000 jobs (7.4%) by 2021.

Visitor Exports
Travel & Tourism visitor exports are expected to generate USD18.1bn (4.0% of total exports) in 2011, growing by 8.6% pa (in nominal terms) to USD34.3bn (2.2%) in 2021.

Investment
Travel & Tourism investment is estimated at USD29.7bn or 4.6% of total investment in 2011. It should rise by 8.4% pa to reach USD66.5bn (or 4.7%) of total investment in 2021.

World ranking (out of 12 regions):
Relative importance of Travel & Tourism’s total contribution to GDP
• 9 ABSOLUTE size
• 12 RELATIVE contribution to national economy
• 1 GROWTH forecast

The South Asia Region includes Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

Download the regional report on South Asia tourism 2011 here

About WTTC
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) is the forum for business leaders in the Travel & Tourism industry. With Chief Executives of some one hundred of the world’s leading Travel & Tourism companies as its Members, WTTC has a unique mandate and overview on all matters related to Travel & Tourism.
WTTC works to raise awareness of Travel & Tourism as one of the world’s largest industries, supporting more than 258 million jobs and generating 9.1 per cent of world GDP.

This article is quoted from WTTC . Follow this link to read the original article and download the report on South Asian tourism 2011 here.
Get an overview of all the region reports from WTTC here

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The Terai Arc landscape, shared by India and Nepal, sits at the base of the Himalayas. It is one of the few places in the world where wild tigers, elephants and rhinos still roam. At the heart of the Terai Arc are Corbett Tiger Reserve and the surrounding forests, where a substantial part of WWF-India’s conservation efforts are focused. The forests in the landscape are facing threats like never before: fragmentation and loss of wildlife corridors, unsustainable land-use policy, human-wildlife conflict, overuse of forest resources. Also, poaching of wildlife – both prey and their predators – remains a serious risk to the region’s famed biodiversity.

In 2006, WWF began working with the village of Mankanthpur in the Kosi-Baur wildlife corridor. This village is located in the middle of the elephant and tiger movement area, and is among the top 20 sites for human-tiger conflict.

Women at risk
At first, WWF staff had to earn the trust of community members, understand their livelihoods and routines, and figure out how to minimize the risk of contact with wild tigers. It became clear that women faced the greatest danger, because it was their responsibility to go to the forest to collect firewood and cattle fodder.

Frequent forest fires, caused by the large amount of leaf litter on the forest floor, also threatened the community. Was there some way to keep women safe, and reduce the risk of forest fire? Sometimes you have to look for unlikely solutions.

At the same time WWF was working to protect tigers and reduce human-wildlife conflict, the Indian government was training communities on composting to improve farm yields. WWF asked the forest department to allow community members to remove leaf litter from the areas most prone to forest fires. The leaf litter went to the compost pile, and the forest was less likely to go up in flames during the hot, dry summer months.

“WWF-India’s team worked with the Forest Department and the communities to devise a way for the villagers to extract resources from the forest in a sustainable way. Lopping and cutting of wood was prohibited and only fallen branches could be removed. The communities were also informed that they would not be allowed to use certain sections of the forest, the main corridors used by tigers. As you can imagine, they readily agreed. It was also agreed in the village meetings that only the forest fringes would be used to extract the fallen wood, and that each village would extract fodder and firewood just two or three days a week,” says Dr. KD Kandpal, Landscape Coordinator, WWF-India’s Terai Arc Landscape project.

To compensate for the loss of some firewood, WWF has promoted biogas stoves, which have multiple benefits. The cattle are now kept in pens, so people can collect the dung needed to run the biogas stoves. This has decreased the pressure on forests, as there are hardly any cattle grazing inside them. It is also safer for the cattle; in 2006 there were 15 cattle killed by wild carnivores; this dropped to below 10 in 2007 and in 2010 there were only three cattle kills reported on the periphery of the village.

Residents of Mankanthpur village have now become part of community forest patrolling team, along with the Forest Department officials. This has increased the efforts to combat poaching and encroachment, and other unwanted interferences in the forests. Because of their close ties to the forest, residents were able to inform WWF staff that people from other villages were extracting firewood and fodder from the off-limits wildlife corridors. WWF-India’s team approached the authorities along with Mankanthpur villagers to stop this, and the Forest Department ordered the range officer to keep people out of these sensitive and dangerous areas.

A final measure of the success of this project is the absence of retaliatory killing of carnivores by the villagers of Mankanthpur, despite a recent survey showing the presence of tigers in all sections of this forest landscape.

KD Kandpal adds, “The future looks bright for the tigers of this area. The recent tiger survey in the adjacent Ramanagar forest division revealed a density of 12 tigers per 100 sq. km. WWF-India has taken a step forward and started similar work this year in the nearby Pawalgarh village. Our aim is to ensure the corridors are kept for good for generations to come.”

This article is quoted from WWF , read the original article here written by Ameen Ahmed, WWF-India and published July 18, 2011.

The article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’. Please join the online Views On Tourism network and discussion group in order to achieve personal goals as well as encourage a sustainable tourism development in Bangladesh and South Asia. Read more about this group and how to become a member here.

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The Sundarbans in India is a vast mangrove forest – a place where rivers and the sea meet and nourish a vibrant yet fragile ecosystem. Home to myriad reptiles, birds and the iconic and endangered tiger, the Sundarbans also has many human residents. It remains, however, an energy-deficient region, with many communities yet to be connected to the conventional power grid.

According to a study, 18 villages coming under the purview of the Sundarbans Development Area are not likely to be electrified through conventional power, at least in the near future. Given this scenario, one solution is local, decentralized power generation using renewable sources like solar, wind or biomass. WWF-India, in collaboration with The Centre for Appropriate Technology, Australia’s indigenous science and technology organisation, is implementing the Bush Light India Project to demonstrate and assess a model for the electrification of remote villages in the Sundarbans using renewable energy.

In March 2011, a solar power station was set up at Rajat Jubilee village. This project is unique, as it is owned and managed by a cooperative in which all consumers are shareholders. WWF-India took the lead in facilitating community mobilisation, including the village energy planning process. In addition, WWF-India assisted and supported the community to establish the institutional structures required to manage the system for the 15 years of its design life.

Lighting to reduce human-wildlife conflict
Most of us don’t need to think very hard to name the benefits of electricity in our lives. For some communities in the Sundarbans, a simple streetlight can be a lifesaver. In the villages adjoining the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve, we installed 20 solar streetlights. To ensure security of the systems, WWF-India provided one home light connection to each of the individual households that were the immediate beneficiaries of the streetlights, thus making them accountable for the systems.

Before installation of each solar streetlight, an agreement was signed with local leaders, forest department officials and community representatives. The responsibilities detailed in the agreement have been performed successfully by each organization, and the systems are functioning well. There have been no incidences of tigers straying out of the reserve into the villages where the lights are installed.

Even when some of the streetlights were destroyed by a cyclone, none of the materials supporting the systems – modules, batteries, solar panels – were lost, because all was kept in safe custody by the immediate beneficiaries. This proved the communities’ commitment to maintaining the system, and prompted authorities of the tiger reserve to come forward to pay for the repair and reinstallation of the lights. The repaired lights are working to date.

Shakila Bibi is a resident of Kalitala village, adjoining Sundarbans Tiger Reserve. She says: “A narrow creek separates our village from the forest, and earlier there was no light at night in the area where I lived. Tigers would frequently visit our village under the cover of darkness. WWF-India provided me a combined solar light connection (a streetlight and home light). The streetlight was installed in front of my house, and now the tigers stay away. I am also happy with the home light connection. When the cyclone damaged the system on my street, I kept the materials at a safe place with the hope that they would be re-installed. I am happy that the light was repaired.”

This article is quoted from WWF , read the original article here written by Ameen Ahmed, WWF-India and published July 18, 2011.

The article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’. Please join the online Views On Tourism network and discussion group in order to achieve personal goals as well as encourage a sustainable tourism development in Bangladesh and South Asia. Read more about this group and how to become a member here.

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