Of all the parks I have ever visited in India, Bandipur is probably the worst 'visitor experience' I have had, with very poor guiding/interpretation, restrictive, uninterested and poor driving in a shoddy park bus and little information to help inspire. If this is what wildlife tourism gets in Bandipur its no wonder that wildlife is more interesting when feeding on the animals on the roadsides of the park!!! We need to make the wildlife experiences both fun and inspiring, and involved them as part of the solution, making tourism and tourists proactive in their respond and ambassadors for protection - not allow them to become reactive, uninspired and uninterested - otherwise you can be sure that tourism will become part of the problem! A total and comprehensive upgrade and 'upliftment' of park guides and guiding qualifications across India, with recognized qualifications, experience and performance remuneration would have a profound effect on both the visitors experiences and the passion by which such guides would...

The one fact that struck me as the most interesting at a recent lecture by Dr Raghu Chandawat, an emminent tiger scientist, was that the well-known tourism zone of Bandhavgarh Tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh held a greater density of wild tigers than he had ever believed possible in such a small area. So is tourism really that good at protecting tigers? The fact is that today, parks with both tigers and tourism hold the greatest density of tigers left in India. Screaming headlines across the world tell the real story of plummeting wild tiger numbers, with 'independently verified' figures now reckoning numbers to be 1300, a collapse of over 40 per cent in just the last ten years. Poaching, revenge killings, Chinese medicine, pelt sales, population and livestock pressures and deforestation are held up as the principle causes. I believe that tourism is a good thing for tiger conservation. It gives them extraordinary protection...