Help Tourism

A travel writers meet in the wilderness setting of North Bengal dedicated o the cause of local empowerment and to all who have completed 50 years of travel writing.

Date: 10thDecember, 2011,        Venue: Chamakdangi Forest Village (20 kms From Siliguri), off Sevoke Road

NCT or Noam, Chel and Teesta represents an area, which is the natural and cultural diversity between the hills and the plains in North Bengal, with areas which were important trade transit centres of the historical to recent past. The Haats or weekly markets then played an important role and the routes connecting them were important. Two such Haats which were famous are Matigara and Oodlabari, which were further connected to the legendary Silk route terminating or starting at Kalimpong. The route from Matigara or even the Darjeeling hills went through the Sukna-Sevoke forests, presently Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary and stood at this village of Chamakdangi, west bank of Teesta. From here all travellers had to cross by boat, elephants etc, depending on the water depth and status of travellers. Chamakdangi then was a mixed village of several different communities, was helped to settle here by the King of Jalpaiguri. Crossing to the Eastern bank we then meet an area, which has been formed by the meeting of several rivers to Teesta River, called Gajoldoba, surrounded by the Royal Baikanthapur Forests. These rivers like Leesh, Gheesh, Chel come from the mountains, separating the villages on the high ridges known as Bagrakot, Chuikhim. Yelbong, Barbot, Manabari etc with Oodlabari at the centre.  Hence, as natural corridor these non notified Forest areas connects Neora Valley National Park with Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary.

There are several such biological corridors all over Asia, some of them active and some lost with time and several on the verge of extinction. Responsible Tourism Initiatives have in the recent years helped to maintain such corridors with the help of the local residential communities of the area by giving them meaningful livelihood, bringing them out of isolation and confirming more commitment from the local communities in conservation. There is a trend of supporting such initiatives through new forms of travel programs like voluntourism, CSR programs, participatory tourism etc. This trend is being very heavily reflected in travel guides, travel columns, travel magazines, travel programs in televisions and most media being used for travel promotion. Hence, this travel writers’ meet, where veteran International travel writers like Stefan Loose and local like Gouri Shankar Bhattacharya are expected to attend and share their experiences. This meet in the wilderness setting of North Bengal will certainly help to make travel writing and documentation more rooted to the cause of local empowerment. This meet is being dedicated to all who have completed 50 years of travel writing.

Registration details

A festival to promote the Samsing-Jaldhaka area in the foothills of the Bhutan Himalaya under Darjeeling Hills as a major orange growing landscape within the pristine nature to promote community based tourism, ecological conservation, Indo-Bhutan Friendship and Peace.

Dates: 6th and 7th of December 2010

• Organized by:
  Samsing-Jaldhaka Orange Festival CommitteeIn Collaboration with:
  WBFDC & Help Tourism
  Resort Owners Association, Lataguri
  Gorumara Paryatan Unnayan Committee
  Chuikhim-Elbong Homestays
  Lava Hotel Restaurant Owners Association
  Loleygaon-Kafer Hotel Owners Association
  Association for Conservation and Tourism
  Nature Mate Nature Club
  Chauthary, Samsing

For any further details please visit: http://orangefestival.blogspot.com/

Project Leaders from around the East Himalaya have come to Darjeeling to attend a one week training workshop in “Nature Based Rural Tourism”.

more pictures of the training

Help Tourism with Expert Klaus Schaette started 2008, at first, a pilot project in Lava, Neora Valley addressing the waste problem, to avoid burning all waste in open fire on the streets, a common practise in India; a smelling, health hazardous procedure and not envi-ronmentally friendly. This time, we addressed the waste problem in three new areas up-coming for Tourism, where people already feel the awareness, that littering waste creates problems.

In Assam, Bongaigaon and Abhayapuri are fast developing into a new tourist destination and acting as a Gateway to Manas National Park, Tiger-, Biosphere Reserve and World heritage site. The Bamungaon picnic spot, is next to the newly opened Astha nature camp.

Picnic spot

This beautiful picnic spot at the green hill-ocks, co-managed by community and forest department, is said to be a demonstration site of participatory conservation; as already visited by many local tourist, it looks like a dumping site, littered with paper, plastic, cans and bottles.

The local N.G.O (Bamungaon eco society) asked Helptourism for assistance, a good opportunity for us to give the locals an exam-ple on proper waste management.

In Abhayapuri we found used oil drums and a work-shop, where the incinerator was built.
Our program started on February 8th at the picnic spot for around 40 interested people.

Manufacturing a simple incinerator from an used oil drum

We all collected the waste, separating it for recy-cling, dumping or burning; to burn only the light plastic in the newly built incinerator without smell and smoke. To keep the picnic spot beautiful, we introduced waste baskets, a Pit for dumping and one for compost (organic waste, dry leaves). At the end, the local NGO invited all for a waste free lunch on organic plates. With the NGO we discussed offering local food specialities to picnickers, instead of selling chips packages, thereby avoiding the pollution of the picnic spot with plastics.
In Bansbari, Central Manas Forest Re-serve, the Forest Department and the Helptourism Tourist camps Maozigendri and Ultapani were our partner in the pro-gram. Altogether we could attract almost 100 participants, included local schools for the joint activity.

The separation and burning can be seen in the pictures.

In Ultapani, a village in the Manas Bio-sphere Reserve, the local guides organized our program. We had more than 100 participants, among them many interested villagers. The separation and burning was a big attrac-tion with training effect, the dumping pit had been prepared at the spot.

In Singalila Forest Reserve, Manebhanjan near Darjeeling, West Bengal the Local Guides Asso-ciation had asked Helptourism to assist in the Waste Problem at the Singalila Trek. They showed us the waste at the Trek; in our discussion we developed a self-help concept with baskets, dumping pits and Incinerator.

Community workshop "Waste Management in Singalila"

They organized a training program with almost 40 guides, Forest Guards and villagers.

The simple system of waste management presented in the program, is a self-help concept and primarily for remote areas, as Tourism Camps, with limited access to recycling. It is about waste separation, to keep the place clean, introducing waste baskets and a Pit for Dumping and Compost. The burning is reduced to “light plastic (Plastic-bags and wrappers) in a self-built incinerator, generating more heat, to avoid smell and hazardous smoke.

Not for Burning are:

• pieces for recycling as Water-bottles (PET), PVC (Pots, carpets, cables, Flip-flops), Glass- bottles and metal
• Organic waste, kitchen waste, dry leaves and straw give excellent compost

Aluminium foil packing are a major waste problem

These packages for chips, tobacco and sweets are on sale everywhere; once empty, you find them littered all over the landscape. They will not rot like paper, cannot be recycled nor burned, since they are coated with metal. To clean the environment, they should be kept only in a dumping pit!!
But they are rather good for the business, the industrial food industry.

by Klaus Schätte – kschaette@freenet.de

After an inspiring two-day workshop the delegates at the “Peace through tourism in historically changed Cross-borders”-Conference drafted the Shantiniketan Declaration (pdf).