Dr. Latha Bhaskar, the project coordinator, Community
Environment Resources Center (CERC), Ashoka Trust for Research
in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), has been seriously engaged
in research studies on sustainable tourism. In this article she
shares few of her findings.The greatest challenge in dealing
with the multidimensional problems in the backwater sector stems
from our inability to generate the necessary synergy and
convergences among the numerous stakeholders. It is high time to
think about how to balance growth with wise use of resources and
engage with these issues in a progressive manner. This is
especially true and significant in the case of tourism industry,
due to its dependence on the delicate ecology of the backwaters.
The long-term sustenance of tourismin the region depends on the
strategies adopted today. The conservation and development
policies need to bee reviewed and restructured in this context,
to address the pressing environmental challenges of the region.
The State Government initiat