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WAYANAD HILL STATION

WAYANAD TOUR DESTINATION

THENMALA - ECOTOURISM

THENMALA ECOTOURISM

VIDEO

 

Capital of Kerala, God's Own Country, the southern most State of India. Thenmala is a small village at the foothills of Western Ghats and predominantly a forest area. The famous Shenduruney Wildlife Sanctuary is the most important ecoLocated about 72kms from Thiruvananthapuram, the Statetourism resource of Thenmala Ecotourism. This Wildlife Sanctuary is of about 100 sq. km. and harbors large varieties of flora and fauna.

Thenmala : "Then + Mala" , i.e. in local parlance "Then" means honey and

"Mala" means hillock i.e. it mean honey hills. The honey collected from Thenmala forest region is of good quality and of high medicinal value because of the unique floristic composition of the forests.

Ecotourism is a new concept in tourism. It is a purposeful travel to natural areas to understand the cultural and natural history of environment, taking care not to alter the integrity of the ecosystem, while producing economic opportunities that make conservation of natural resources beneficial to local people. In short, ecotourism can be conceptualised as

"Any tourism programme that is

• nature based,
• ecologically sustainable,
• where education and interpretation is a major component and
• where local people are benefited
  

can be called ecotourism". If it does not satisfy any one of these components then it cannot be called a real ecotourism venture.

Tourism Department, Government of Kerala, India has taken steps to give focussed attention to ecotourism in the State. A separate ecotourism wing has been created to give policy support for the development of the ecotourism destinations in the State. Accordingly a project for the first planned ecotourism destination (Thenmala Ecotourism Project) has been formulated in and around Shenduruney Wildlife Sanctuary with the co-operation of departments such as Forest, Irrigation and Tourism. In order to give flexibility in management for the development of this destination, a separate Society, the Thenmala Ecotourism Promotion Society (TEPS) has been constituted.

"Thenmala Ecotourism" has been conceived as a first planned ecotourism destination in India and the initial stages of implementation is completed.

The major objectives of this project are

1. To develop Thenmala dam and its surroundings as a major tourist destination.

2. To promote Ecotourism on the basis of sound principles of ecological sustainability in the surrounding areas of Thenmala.

3. To have a well planned tourism destination with emphasis on sustainable tourism development so as to become a model for other destination development programmes.

When the idea of developing Thenmala as a tourism destination was mooted seriously in 1996, it was decided to develop it as an ecotourism destination by keeping the degraded forest area, in the outskirts of the Sanctuary, as a familiarization zone. The studies and discussions followed helped to evolve a strategy to control the mass tourism within the outer limits of the Sanctuary. Hence the ecotourism products, which are developed within Sanctuary, are expected to be supply driven, which eventually takes care of ecological sustainability. It was also planned to have satellite centers in various places in Western Ghats mountainous region within a radius of 50 km from Thenmala. The familiarisation zones thus created function as area for soft ecotourists.

Eco-friendly General Tourism is planned in the periphery of the sanctuary so that pressure of tourism will not affect sanctuary. The real ecotourism is to take place in sanctuary and only ecotourists are encouraged for that. Others can experience the ecofriendly products such as small nature trails, elevated walkway through canopies, mountain biking etc. This will give them a feeling of what awaits as ecotourism in the sanctuary area, for which they have to wait since it is supply driven. This was a consciously developed management strategy after analysing what is happening in various sanctuaries by way of tourist pressure.

Facilities such as boating in the Sanctuary reservoir, boardwalk, sculpture garden, amphitheatre, Musical Dancing Fountain, etc. are also provided at Thenmala for soft ecotourists. An Environmental education and interpretation center is also being set up at Thenmala.

Thenmala Ecotourism Promotion Society adopted a strategy to co-ordinate with Forest Department, the Irrigation Department and Tourism Department and implement various activities in association with each Department.

Private initiative is expected in areas such as providing accommodation, transportation facility etc. No permanent constructions are made in forest areas. Accommodations for tourists are developed outside the forests, at a distance.

To make this project a great success Thenmala Ecotourism Promotion Society (TEPS) entrusted the conduct of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI). KFRI had conducted EIA for the destination and the satellite spots. Further, on the recommendations of KFRI and on the basis of the Environmental Impact Assessment, TEPS amended the activities so as to minimise the negative impacts of the project.

The products such as trekking, bird watching trails etc. is being developed and operationalised through the institution of Eco-development Committees / Participatory Forest Management Committees (locally known as Vana Samrakshna Samithi (VSS)), thereby ensuring local benefits from ecotourism. Forest Department has already evolved expertise in the formulation of Eco-development Committees and VSS through institutionalised means. This will help in channelising the benefits of ecotourism to the local people, which will ultimately elicit support of local community for forest protection and conservation.

Thenmala ecotourism project is the first planned ecotourism project/destination in the country. In many other cases it was just renaming of an already existing "nature tourism". Here from the very beginning efforts have been taken to imbibe the internationally accepted principles of ecotourism in the planning process as well as in implementation. A conscious management strategy has been evolved to create a familiarization zone to limit the impacts in sensitive ecosystems to the minimum. Another important feature is the institutionalizing of co-ordination mechanism among Forests, Irrigation and Tourism Departments, Local Community, Local Self Government and other stake holders.

In short "Thenmala ecotourism" is a learning experience. Our idea is to make this destination qualitatively better by getting valuable feedback from all esteemed visitors and there by strive for excellence in the area of conservation of natural resources and authentic tourism experience.

IDUKKI TOUR DESTINATIONS

LION TAILED MACAQUE

LION TAILED MACAQUE

                                    Lion Tailed Macaque

The Lion-tailed Macaque is a diurnal rain forest dweller. It is a good climber and spends a majority of its life in the upper canopy of tropical moist evergreen forests. Unlike other macaques, it avoids humans. In group behavior, it is much like other macaques: it lives in hierarchical groups of usually ten to twenty animals, which consist of few males and many females. It is a territorial animal, defending its area first with loud cries towards the invading troops. If this proves fruitless, it brawls aggressively.

A recent assessment for IUCN reports 3000-3500 of these animals live scattered over several areas in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The Lion-tailed Macaque ranks among the rarest and most threatened primates. Their range has become increasingly isolated and fragmented by the spread of agriculture and tea, coffee, teak and cinchona, construction of water reservoirs for irrigation and power generation, and human settlements to support such activities. They don't live, feed or travel through plantations. Destruction of their habitat and the fact that they avoid human proximity, has led to the drastic decrease of their population.

During 1977 to 1980, public concern about the endangered lion-tailed macaque became the focal point of Save Silent Valley, India's fiercest environmental debate of the decade. During 1993 to 1996, fourteen troops of lion-tailed macaque were observed in Silent Valley National Park, Kerala, one of the most undisturbed viable habitats left for the lion-tailed macaque. A self-sustainable single population of 32 groups of lion-tailed macaques occurred in Sirsi-Honnavara, Karnataka, the northernmost population of the species. A local census concluded in 2007, conducted in the Theni District of Tamil Nadu, put their numbers at around 250, which was considered encouraging, because till then, there had not been any records of Lion-tailed Macaques in that specific area. Many zoos take part in breeding programs which help to secure the survival of this species. 368 of these Macaque are reported to live in zoos.

                                                                 VIDEO

ONAM WISHES

NILGIRI TAHR

ERAVIKULAM NATIONAL PARK

AARANYAKAM

CARTOON 2

CARTOON 1

CLEAN CITY

2050 AD

LITTLE FISH AND TINY NET

KURINJIPPOOMOZHI

MESSAGE

Dear friends,

I am so happy to inform you that BIO-VISION started a new blog 'ECOCLUB' for promoting

the Ecoclub activities of schools. I planned to publish your Ecoclub activities on blog. So if you like to publish it ,please send a report of activities prepared as a word document along with photos and videos. expect your co-operation; with pleasure ….

                                                                                   your's loving

                                                                                  SUBHASH.S

                                                                        for BIO-VISION