Increasing tourist nuisance at Deoria Tal

Well, depends on the places... such as GMVN, KMVN, Forest Deptt, State Tourisms.... sometimes in their official sites!!!... even in case of private hotels.!!

This is not a problem peculiar to India.

The destinations under threat from tourism - in pictures.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...Mount--002.jpg

600 climbers going up Everest the other day! And up to 200 people hope to summit today..

pic: Ralf Dujmovits. The Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...-hobby-tragedy

Isn't it obvious that they are all useless in so far as enviro protection is concerned, otherwise we wouldn't have the mess.

yes of course, Paleface.

But sometimes, a little jerk may displace a stone. Besides, it'll show common people's concern.... err, I can say protest against those nuisance.

A disaster waiting to happen. Not just environmental, but also human (already has materialized this year to an extent). At some level, this is also quite amusing - an extrapolation of being carried on ponies and palanquins on the Kedar route...

Adiyogi

Of course i agree with you, chipping away at it wherever one can... popularity is destructive, too many people all over isn't it!

Presently locally, we are trying to get 'the authorities' not to allow g/houses etc to come up at Dodi Tal, two kms away minimum, and also to run a mule borne garbage collection system - might as well talk to a brick wall quite honestly.

The only progress we've seen in recent few years is the quota cap on people going beyond Gangotri, at 150 per day - which does show that sometimes these curbs can actually be implemented and enforced successfully.

We need much more very strict control on specific areas such as what was imposed for Nanda Devi biosphere/inner sanctuary.

Spot on and it happens all the time - and the climbers overwhelmingly pass by the dying?? yet the other day an Israeli climber, Nadav Ben Yehuda, carried a Turkish-born American climber, Aydin Irmak, to safety on his back for eight hours - brilliant man!

An old and ongoing debate, but a recent update here -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/shor...mma?intcmp=239

Paleface - check that mountain cleaners link I posted earlier. They have just got funding to start an office in dehradun. If you found someone to put some time in, maybe you could find some funding to start something there in this valley, it's possible they could help with that. After all, the authorities do not have enough money for anything, but if you find the cash from somewhere, then of course things are possible.

There is also a bunch of volunteers called Making a difference, students from a bunch of the big schools there. You could contact them, and who knows, they may even do a clean-up drive in your valley.

I personally like the approach by The Ugly Indians in bangalore though - they watch the situation, and recognise that if they clean a small area, and make it look cared for, and also provide bins etc, that areas stay clean of their own accord, with minimal maintenance.

And this twat - Turkish-born American climber, Aydin Irmak - who was rescued - believe it or not was carrying his mountain bike up the bloody hill, a complete farce.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...internalSearch

So you are already in track.

It's really very good to hear of such good implementations ... Now, we people need not get impatient ...'Oh!!! why only 150, why not some more for the season etc.etc.' ... as we often used to cry, even knowing reasons!!!

Honest good efforts must win..... I wish. There are people till now to offer their helping hands, I believe.

Yeah - it's amazing. Both the above groups operate a bit like a flash-mob. They just post on the internet where they will be cleaning this week, and lots of people turn up. They have a great time by all accounts - it's a cleaning party

I could go on a long ways about starting something, implementation, methods, funding, but i'll try to keep it v.short.

Oh i was doing garbage management and a raft of enviro-social projects for years in Vrindavan - that NGO i set up is still going successfully and financially sustainable. Also we did the mohala by mohala model street cleaning with our own employed safaikaramchar's (in uniform) and collect from residents their share of the costs, even though they also pay house tax to Nagarpalika - then segregated collection, vermi-composting, selling the product...

And blowing my own horn we established one of the first bio-medical wastes collection and disposal schemes in India, where you know how it was previously, body parts, fetus etc thrown in the trash pile on the street. So yes we have come some way already in tackling many of these problems, but the mountain to climb is social backwardness, and that is not about literacy or illiteracy and in many ways the middle classes and wealthier folks are more to blame for the state of things.

I will check out mountain cleaners, thanks..

And I’ve read about the Bangoloreans, doing similar to what we have done for long in V’van.. keep it up eh!

The urban problems are in many ways are easier to take on than the "wilderness" challenges, regarding the sort of problems we have touched upon in this thread in Uttarakhand.

Taking on any of these challenges seems like a good and positive thing to do, which is obvious, however any work/seva involving communities, environment, funding and so on involves a huge amount of commitment and tenacity, let alone dealing with the hassles of achieving a state of co-operation with self-appointed intimidatory Neta’s, or uninterested Nagarpalika's, ward members and any number of Govt. institutions, Forest dept. etc

This is from last evening illustrating another dimension of pollution..

The fires during this dry period of summer are lit by villagers, along with 'controlled' fires by Forest dept. you never know which is which. The purpose is to burn off the pine needles which get to several inches deep - to allow grass to grow to feed the cows, goats etc

The smoke is the main reason why on sat images the ranges are obscured in summer. Nobody gets darshan of the peaks.. exactly when Uttarkhand should be marketing its greatest assets which are mountain water, cleaner air and pano ramramas of the Himalayas. If this is not a reasonable example of incompetence then i'm a chinaman!

Our problem is pine needles. High calorific content for use as fuel. Make briquettes? Start a commercial enterprise partnership with villagers. Any genius out there up for developing that?

funnily enough, i think there is someone in gharwal doing just that - i seem to remember a project which was in the Spark the Rise competition.

ok - here it is: http://www.sparktherise.com/projectdetail.php?pid=4238

also kudos on the work you did