Don't miss THE big live debate today

29th April 2010

Times Live debate is: "Wildlife tourism doing more harm than good?"

Exodus' wildlife expert Paul Goldstein is taking part in a live debate on the Times Online about wildlife tourism.

Tune in at 12pm and post your comments

The report in yesterday's Times about the decision by India's National Tiger Conservation Authority to phase out tourism in its 37 tiger reserves has sparked heated debate among our readers.

See  The Times Online Report

Four days ago Paul Goldstein from Exodus ran the London marathon in a 9ft high Bengal tiger costume and so far has raised over £20k for the animals plight. He says:

"I find it astonishing and distressing that on the day that Great Britain agrees to send a full complement to the Commonwealth Games that one Indian Government Minister issues such a damaging, misleading and incorrect indictment of his country's tiger situation." These stats are indeed damning. The withering freefalling decline is due to several reasons - namely poaching and encroachment. Nowhere do I read of tigers being butchered by tourists. To claim that they 'are being loved to death' is as whimsical as it is misguided.

Exodus sends over 400 people a year to see tigers and other wildlife in India's national parks and I have been privileged enough to show at least a 100 people their first tiger in the last few years. Neither I nor Exodus would do this if we felt there was the remotest possibility that we were harming this endangered predator. These tourists year after year are supporting the economies associated in and around the reserves. In hard times they have also dug deep into their pockets to spend over and above just their tourist dollar: schools have been rebuilt, boreholes dug, ambulances purchased, new patrol vehicles supplied and solar security lights installed in the park. This is an ongoing project and will not be thwarted by the misguided ramblings of a minister looking to deflect blame for the tigers demise in advance of his country's biggest sporting occasion.

I am quite sure that there are enough wise heads in Delhi that will see through the lunacy of this scheme and good sense will prevail. Losing tourists will be the final death knell for the tigers, for it is sensitively run safaris with generous patrons that, after years of neglect and corruption will secure the future of the tiger. Claiming that tourism deforests their habitat is wrong. It is illegal to drive off road in the parks and this code is rigorously enforced  and the difference a handful of elephants makes is negligible. Tigers move more quickly and furtively than any four wheeled or four legged tourist.

There are far more serious concerns to the tiger: those of poaching and traditional but ineffectual Chinese medicine. If this gentleman really wants to make a difference perhaps he should be aiming his misguided arrows of accusation east rather than west.

Needless to say, I will again be running the marathon in 2011 in the same costume, as this magnificent predator will need this and more support to continue to survive with its best ambassadors being tourists."