Patricia Mukhim
Tourism is becoming a major revenue earner for Meghalaya but is the present model of tourism sustainable? Recently when Prime Minister Modi visited Shillong he made it a point to visit two tourist spots. One the Elephant Falls at Upper Shillong and the second, the Heritage Village at Mawphlang. Heavy rains prevented the PM from entering the sacred groves nearby. At the Elephant Falls Modi met with the San Shnong Youth Welfare Organisation (SSYWO) which has been running the place for over fifteen years. Mr Modi asked the members of the SSYWO how many families benefitted from the Tourist Spot. He was told fifty families. He asked why there were only so few beneficiaries. The SSYWO said their plans to expand were thwarted by the Forest Department, although the Organisation was actually caring for the surrounding forests. The SSYWO knows that the forest must be sustained if they are to attract tourists.
Modi’s second question was why there were so many overhead wires in a tourist spot and whether the place was wi-fied (the PM was probably trying to tweet about the Elephant Falls but could not detect any internet connectivity). He was told that mobile service providers have not been able to provide quality connectivity to the area. The next question was why the railings leading to the Elephant Falls were painted white and green (the typical Forest Department trade mark) when waterfalls were set against a brown background of boulders and rocks. He was told that the SSYWO had nothing to do with that.
It was fortunate that during the PM’s visit Shillong experienced heavy rainfall and hence Modi was not greeted with the stench that afflicts the place during the drier seasons. Guess where the stench comes from. The entire toilet soak- pits of the Eastern Air Command of the Indian Air Force empties into the beautiful Elephant Falls. This has been reported times without number but to no avail. After all it takes a lot to shake up a defence establishment. But had the PM been briefed about this he would have been furious that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was blatantly ignored by the Indian Air Force despite several reminders from the local communities. The SSYO has since written to the PM on these crucial issues.
Now coming to the point of sustainability of the Elephant Falls, one wonders if the SSWYO is capable of handling the nearly two thousand footfalls daily during the peak seasons of May to October. How do they manage garbage comprising thousands of discarded plastic food packages plastic bottles? Where does all this garbage go? Does it also go to Marten? Marten is a symbol of a solid waste management system gone kaput and it announces itself to every visitor to Shillong.
When the PM went to the Heritage Village he was “entertained” by the traditional dancers and musicians and in view of the limited time he did not really observe and comment on the place. If someone who understood heritage tourism had accompanied Modi the person would have pointed to the monoliths and their significance to Khasi history, culture and their narratives. Mr Modi would have wondered why there was no write-ups in stone on the importance of the monoliths. Indeed, when the yearly festival itself is called the Monolith Festival, why are the same monoliths so badly maintained. Some people sit on them. Others set up shops on them. Still others walk all over the megaliths (the ones that lie horizontal) without a care about the significance of these stones which date back thousands of years and are intricately linked to our culture.
Today the Mawphlang Sacred Grove is another place that is teeming with visitors in season. Is there anything sacred about it anymore? Those who run the place see it as the golden goose and are about to kill it and take away all the eggs. There is a distinct sense that “money” has become the all-important criterion for the local community looking after the Sacred Grove and its surroundings. The reason I say this is because if you pay the collector enough cash you can take your vehicle and park right next to the Grove. If you pay the normal fee then you park at what has been designated as a parking place. To my mind if anything is going to kill tourism in Meghalaya, then GREED certainly will be that one factor.
But why does all this happen? What are there no regulations that tour operators whether they are village bumpkins or smartly trained youth should not cross the carrying capacity of any place in a particular day and season? A study needs to be conducted by environmental scientists/ecologists about the carbon footprints that all our tourist spots can get away with. We would have noticed that the number of foreign tourists to Meghalaya has dropped and hence our ability to earn dollar revenue has gone down. Earlier foreign tourists used to enjoy the serenity and simplicity of Mawlynnong. Now they see greed written on the faces of those who run the place. So they have begun to look for more distant destinations where they are undisturbed by noise, chatter and garbage. A foreign tourist looking at the quantum of garbage generated by the tourists at Mawlynnong said he was heartbroken. He knows that the people of Mawlynnong don’t even have a garbage management system in place, particularly plastic garbage.
More recently, we would have seen an online petition put up by Robert Paine on behalf of Byron Nongbri who owns a home-stay facility at Nongriat, to stop the construction of the road that links Nongthymmai village to Tyrna because that would leave Nongriat vulnerable to overcrowding. Paine is a regular visitor to Nongriat where the many- splendoured Double Decker Living Root Bridge stands witness to the engineering genius of our ancestors. This indigenous knowledge is precious. Hence people who step on this living root bridge must do so with reverence. Alas! The tour guides to Nongriat don’t know to weave stories around this marvellous wonder where the gift of nature blends with the ingenuity of humans to produce such a spectacular piece of art.
Nongriat is perhaps one of the few destinations today that it is difficult to scale and so has remained relatively undisturbed by groups of over-enthusiastic tourists from within the country (whose understanding and appreciation of tourism leaves much to be desired). If Nongriat is invaded we can imagine the tragedy, not just of the home-stay owners who have made a living out of tourism, but also of the villagers who would have to contend with thousands of visitors on a given day. Do the villagers of Mawlynnong or Nongriat actually revel in the fact that their villages are sold as destinations? Were they ever consulted? Are they benefitting from the huge tourism market? The answers would be interesting to hear.
So why does all this happen? It happens because the Tourism Policy of Meghalaya is still in a draft form. It has been carefully crafted but has not been adopted as a Policy. Hence there are no benchmarks for tour operators to follow. Also, the Tourism Department itself functions without a roadmap. Let me quote from some key vision statements in the Draft Policy.
Statement 1: “Keeping in mind the requirement to provide economic opportunities to the local communities as also the need to preserve the eco-system and the ethnic identity of the people, the tourism policy has been designed to sustain the rich cultural heritage and biodiversity of the state.” Where is the design for sustainability?
Statement 2: “Construction works relating to tourism projects may be designed in such a way that the structure will merge with the surroundings and the natural environment of the area so as to present a good ambience, taking into consideration the need for durability and sustainability of the structure in a particular environment.” Agreed, so what are those concrete matchbox like buildings doing in a pristine forested environment?
Statement 3: “To establish a set of best practices in the tourism sector.” May we ask what those best practices are that can be replicated by tour promoters?
Statement 4: “Launching of a state wide campaign to keep Meghalaya clean and beautiful. All stakeholders will have to contribute to this effort.” Which of the tour operators are contributing to this cleanliness effort? What is their corporate social responsibility? It has been left vague and ambiguous.
Statement 5: “Protection and promotion of caves in collaboration with professional and experts in the field and the local community.” Has the person who enunciated this policy visited the Sohra caves in recent times? Does he/she/they know how many footfalls a day invade the caves? I just hope the caves do not collapse one day because of anthropogenic activities.
On this note I sign off and hope that avid tour promoters get their act together. But then I learnt that the tour operators don’t even have an umbrella organisation under which they can speak to and engage with the Government. Each one is doing his/her own thing. Good luck to Meghalaya Tourism!