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Linking of tourism with initiatives like Rural Business Hubs (RBH), as introduced in North East region, which envisages promotion of quality rural products like handloom, handicrafts, agro products, herbal products, bio- fuel, etc., may be considered as yet another aspect of promoting eco-tourism in the IHR.
Regulated entry
The Government of Uttarakhand has restricted the number of tourists visiting the origin of the river Ganga - Gangotri area to 150 per day.
Recommendations / solutions
However, considering the sensitivity (both cultural and natural) of this region, strict operational guidelines are required to be enforced across IHR with region specific provisions for facilitating and promoting community based ecotourism.
Recommendations / solutions - Regulating Tourism and Pilgrimage to Sensitive Areas
1. Pilgrimage tourism in the Himalaya requires both development and regulation so as to reduce congestion and resultant pollution.
2. The accommodation and road transport infrastructure needs to be developed in pilgrimage sites.
3. The pilgrimage tourism is a kind of “economy class” tourism in the Indian Himalayan Region. Suitable accommodation and other facilities need to be made available accordingly.
4. All existing sites should have adequate provision of garbage disposal and management.
5. An inventory of historical, sensitive and sacred sites including sacred groves should be prepared and their vulnerability should be assessed.
6. The access to such sites of incomparable value through vehicles needs to be restricted beyond a certain zone.
Recommendations / solutions - Promoting Ecotourism and Regulation of Commercial Tourism
1. Eco-tourism villages, parks, sanctuaries and other areas should be identified to establish a primary base for ecotourism.
2. Village communities, especially youths, and rural women should be involved in Ecotourism.
3. Restrictions on the entry of vehicles and visitors per day/ per group should be imposed in sensitive ecological sites.
4. Local art, crafts, cuisines, and dishes should be promoted and made an integral part of tourist experience in order to ensure economic benefits to the locals and their cultural integrity/ entity is not lost.
5. Best practices on commercial trekking should be imposed on a mandatory basis
6. Creation of log/bamboo huts should be promoted in busy mountain areas.
Recommendations / solutions for related segments Rejuvenation of Springs and Degraded Sites
♤ Special attention should be paid to recharge of ground water and quality of mountain lakes/wetlands through restoration of forests.
♤ Detailed geological mapping should be conducted to identify the spring recharge zone and locate geological structures.
♤ Nuclear water prospecting technologies should be used to map the water sources and prevent the construction activities in such locations that could damage or adversely affect such sources.
♤ Engineering measures to protect recharge zone from biotic interferences.
♤ Social fencing measures, e.g.
(i) digging shallow infiltration trenches, mulching.
(ii) construction of stone-mud check dams in gullies to store rainwater and check soil erosion; and
(iii) land levelling, maintenance of crop field bunds to allow stagnation of rainwater should be enhanced.
♤ Vegetative measures with the aim to enhance rainwater infiltration and reduce rainwater runoff.
♤ Involvement of stakeholder community should be ensured at every step of the Spring Sanctuary Development. The maintenance and aftercare of the interventions have to be ensured through their involvement.
Rain Water Harvesting
♤ All buildings to be constructed in future in urban areas should have provision for roof-top rain water harvesting
♤ The institutional and commercial buildings should not draw water from existing water supply schemes which adversely affect water supply to local villages or settlements.
♤ In rural areas rain water harvesting should be undertaken through such structures as percolation tanks, storage tanks and any other means.
♤ Spring sanctuary development should be undertaken in the spring recharge zones to augment spring water discharge.
♤ Rain water collected through storm water drains should be used to clean the waste disposal drains and sewers.
♤ Ground water aquifer recharge structures should be constructed wherever such structures do not lead to slope instabilities.
Ecologically Safer Roads
♤ For construction of any road in the Himalayan region of more than 5 km length where the same may not be tarred roads and environmental impact assessment is otherwise not required, environmental impact assessment should be carried out in accordance with the instructions to be issued for this purpose by the State Governments.
♤ Provision should be made in the design of the road for treatment of hill slope instabilities resulting from road cutting, cross drainage works and culverts using bioengineering and other appropriate techniques.
♤ Provisions should be made for disposal of debris from construction sites in appropriate manner at suitable and identified locations so as not to affect the ecology of the area adversely.
Further, the dumped material should be treated using bioengineering and other appropriate techniques.
♤ No stone quarrying should be carried out without proper management and treatment plan including rehabilitation plan.
♤ All hill roads should be provided with adequate number of road side drains and these drains shall be kept free from blockage for runoff disposal; further, the cross drains shall be treated suitably using bio- engineering and other appropriate technologies so as to minimise slope instability.
♤ The runoff from the road side drains should be connected with the natural drainage system in the area.
♤ Fault zones and historically land slide prone zones should be avoided during alignment of a road, where for any reason it is not possible to do so, the construction should be carried out only after sufficient measures have been taken to minimize the associated risks.
♤ Ridge alignment should be preferred to valley alignment.
♤ Alignment should be selected so as to minimise loss of vegetal cover.
♤ Encouragement should be provided for use of debris material for local development.