Press Releases and Journals
Posted here are TOFT's latest press releases. Should you wish to enquire about any part of this campaign, or its membership please contact Julian Matthews on julian.matthews@toftigers.org or call +44 1285 643333.
INDIA’S NATURE TOURISM INDUSTRY BITES BACK
The industry response to the recent NTCA’s statement to ban tourism from Tiger parks
DATE RELEASED - 30th April 2010
The wildlife tourism industry is astonished by Dr Rajesh Gopal’s, head of National Tiger Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) recent declaration to cast tourism out of core areas of Tiger reserves. (Hindustan Times article Tuesday 20th April and Times Online Wednesday 28th April)
These so called ‘loved to death’ parks are the best habitats with the highest Tiger densities in India, suggests far from ‘killing tigers’ and degrading landscapes, tiger tourism is doing exactly the opposite – saving forests - from an infinitely worse fate.
A recent report highlighted poor tourism practices outside Corbett National Park (only the Government itself operates tourism within park boundaries), the most visited park in India, yet it still has the highest number of Tigers in India (NTCA’s Tiger census 2008). Bandhavgarh TR has the heaviest densities of tigers in its main Tala tourism zone, 5 breeding females and 14 cubs and it gets circa 45000 visits a year. When sub adults leave this tourist zone seeking their own ranges in buffer zone forests they get 'lost' – poached or poisoned. Ranthambhore, with its 450 square kms and estimated 35 to 38, finds 22 to 23 (two thirds) of these tigers have ranges that fall within the much smaller 130 sq kms of the Tourism zone. These facts suggests that the best tiger security and habitat exists in tourism zones, and tigers and prey sense it.
Tourism values wildlife like no other economy. TOFT ‘valued’ Machali, the famous Ranthambhore Tigress as generating US$130 million in direct tourism revenue in the eleven years of her adult life as ‘lady of the lake’. Possible ten times this in indirect revenue for Indian businesses and government coffers. Take this away and these forests will again have no economic value to those living nearby or to local politicians - and they will be sacrificed to farming, mining, industry or logging, as is happening in most unloved and unknown forests across India.
Tourism makes forest personnel highly (and often uncomfortably) accountable and makes millions of dollars in Park fees for these personnel to use in conservation. Tiger tourism is the best anti poaching unit, operating vehicles watching for eight hours a day, deflecting poachers, loggers and grazers from being there. Many tigers are habituated to tourism’s daily activities. Furthermore, every year 2 million pilgrims walking into Ranthambhore NP without a single problem. The tourism industry even highlighting the collapse in tiger numbers in Panna National Park in Madhya Pradesh two years before the Government declared the park devoid of Tigers in Feb 2009.
Tourism offers better livelihoods to hundreds of rural people living on a park’s borders, instead of their marginal farming, illegal logging, poaching and cattle grazing activities. It has converted poachers into guardians, communities into forest stakeholders and visitors into passionate advocates for preservation. Furthermore every Indian taxpayer has an inherent right to enjoy these wilderness regions – and the lodge industry is simply allowing this to happen.
Indeed, most in the wildlife lodge community are calling for better rules and regulations. Much is unplanned or poorly planned and regulated and they accept it must be rapidly controlled and a new national tourism template laid down and enforced. Representative bodies like Travel Operators for Tigers have been calling for action on this for many years. It still hasn’t happened. Madhya Pradesh’s ‘Ecosensitive Zone’ regulations have been stuck with the Indian Supreme court since 2006, awaiting a ruling.
So let’s not shoot down the one industry that has the power to restore and value wildlife. Give the industry the best ground rules by which it can become a tool for conservation, not a soft cover up for hiding the real reasons for the Tiger’s demise – be it poaching, burnt, degraded and over grazed forests and lack of political and institutional will. These are what kill tigers.
Issues on behalf of Travel Operators for Tigers 150 members
For further comment or interview please call + 91 98 10 722634
Pictured Below: Camp Forktail
TOFT POINTS THE WAY TO OUTSTANDING ECO LODGES IN INDIA’S TIGER PARKS
DATE RELEASED - 19th December 2009
Travel Operators for Tigers (TOFT) is delighted to announce that it has 2 eco lodges that raise the standards of the PUG Certification programme to its highest level when it comes to their sustainability and environmental footprint.
Over 50 lodges from some of India’s finest Tiger parks have now been audited but only the very best obtain the highest award, that of an ‘Outstanding’ ranking.
The prized lodges are a small, intimate and privately owned tented camp on the borders of Corbett Tiger Reserve in Utterakhand, called Camp Forktail, and one of India’s largest hotel group properties in partnership with &beyond, Taj Safaris new upmarket lodge, Baghvan, on the borders of Pench National park in Madhya Pradesh.
"After three years we are delighted that we finally have two lodges that reached our very highest standards, and 12 lodges that reach our Quality practice rating. With travellers increasingly making purchasing decisions on environmental considerations and carbon footprint, so more and more wilderness lodges across India are keen to be involved in the campaign and get audited." says Julian Matthews, TOFT’s founding Chairman.
The PUG Certification programme, was commissioned in 2007 by the TOFT campaign to allow the Travel community to choose the best practice suppliers in India’s most visited Tiger parks, like Kanha, Ranthambhore and Bandavgarh. The PUG certification audits lodges on their economic, social and environmental impacts in and around their park location. TOFT is made up of over 180 Indian and International travel operators and service providers, and was catalysed in response to the huge decline in the Tiger population in India in 2005. TOFT seeks to advocate and support a more sustainable way forward both with the wildlife travel community, alongside NGO’s and Park authorities. For further details call Julian Matthews in the UK on 01963 824514 or visit www.toftigers.org
The TOFT Wildlife Tourism Awards
DATE RELEASED 24th April 2009
Two individual wild Tigers pick up ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for their hundred million dollar contribution to the Indian economy
“They are multi-million dollar earners but it isn’t a business award they are being given but an environmental one.
“Machali herself earns as much as a top cricketer or Bollywood actress” says Julian Matthews, “and it’s critical to recognise these extraordinary economic benefits that come from saving her species in the wild. She literally provides livelihoods for thousands of people from forest guards to wildlife guides, drivers to hoteliers!.”
TOFT Lifetime Achievement Awards will be made tonight, (Friday 24th April) to Ranthambhore’s famous tigress Machali and Bandavgarh’s celerity male Tiger, known as B2 (or Sundar) in recognition of their star pulling power in Ranthambhore and Bandavgarh Tiger Reserves.
The two tigers - though not personally accepting the awards – with be given the prize at the launch of the TOFT Wildlife Tourism Awards, being held at the Residency of the British High Commission in Delhi.
TOFT has calculated that the extraordinary pulling power of Machali has earned nearly US$100 million (48000 crores) for the Indian Economy since she became a dominant resident female in the Tourism zone of Ranthambhore in 1998 as well as bringing up 11 cubs, two of whom are now in Sariska NP. Like all good stars she even has a Facebook page, has been seen by over 150000 visitors and millions on TV across the globe.
B2 in Bandavgarh is also an extraordinary tiger. He has sired over 35 tigers, 90% of which lived to adulthood, an extraordinary high ratio itself thanks to the protection he has been able to afford his many lovers! The sizable majority of tigers living in Bandhavgarh today are his sons and daughters. As Head of the family business, B2 has been estimated to have earned US$30m over his 7 year reign in the Tala Tourism range.
There is an old maxim - if it pays it stays - and these two tigers justify the extraordinary efforts and costs that going into preserving her, her kin and her forest habitat.
“The award is being made to two tigers tonight on behalf of the wildlife tourism industry but of course it is also very much in recognition of the hard work and dedication of all the Park staff – forest guards, wildlife and forest officers and administrators over many years. So to all of these people let us all say a big thank you.”
Accepting the Award on behalf of Machali is Ranthambhore’s Field Director, Shafaat Hussain, and his colleague Mr Shekawhat, DFO.
Abhishek Behl, TOFT India Director, added……
“These awards mark the launch of a new Annual Award’s we are running to highlight the work of all those involved who are using the wildlife tourism industry, its entrepreneurship, manpower and visitors most effectively to support conservation and restore wildlife habitat. It will reward best practice and sustainability across the lodge community, enhance cooperation and partnership with parks, motivate guides and guards and highlight the best community tourism initiatives wherever they are found. This is an exciting time for wildlife tourism, it has an extraordinary potential to be a major force for good in helping protect the tiger and we know these TOFT Wildlife Tourism Awards will become a key event in the Wildlife Tourism and Conservation calendar.
Notes to Editors
Travel Operators for Tigers (TOFT) and Travel Operators for Tigers India Wildlife Association (TOFT India) are international not for profit organisations representing all sectors of the wildlife tourism community including over 160 International tour operators, Indian destination management companies and local wilderness hotel and lodge operators.
TOFT was established in 2004 by Julian Matthews - who was also the founder of a pioneering nature travel operator in the UK - it’s aims is to encourage best practice in wildlife tourism, thereby creating a more visionary, more sustainable and more environmentally responsible conservation tool for saving Tigers and their habitat across India.
For more details call Julian Matthews on 09971708070 or Abhishek Behl on 09873344304.
