Ecotourism in India is approached through generic guidelines that lack definite standards and judging their compliance is difficult. The solution lies in preferably quantified benchmarks for different components of nature in ecotourism areas. The discussion on the common benchmarks brings out their role in promoting eco-tourism in true spirit.

Conservation policies to protect wildlife and biodiversity ignore the basic survival needs and imperatives of local people. This article aims to show how conservation policies trigger floods in protected areas, especially those located in the foothills of the Himalayan mountain ranges, leading to huge damage to plantations and habitats as well as settlements of the local people.

Independent evaluations of the impact and legacy of large donor-funded integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) are critically important but rarely undertaken. The India Eco-Development Project around Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR-IEDP) in southern India received US$ 6.0 million, of which 43.2% was spent on community-based conservation activities.

In some cases, the creation of protected areas to conserve nature has resulted in the displacement of indigenous peoples away from their original territories in Latin America.

The viability of biodiversity conservation based uniquely upon a model of protected areas is being questioned in the developing world, and new evidence is emerging on the social and ecological costs of displacing people in order to 'impose wilderness' (Neumann 2002; Igoe 2004; Rodr?gues 2006).

Contemporary efforts to protect biodiversity internationally are beset by multiple problems. Growing consumption pressures are contributing to ever faster declines in species and the systems they depend on. Available funds for conservation have declined.

Protected areas are even more important for biodiversity conservation and human livelihoods in a world with a changing climate.

Khonoma is a village in Nagaland and home to the proud Angami tribe. The region was once rich in biodiversity and wildlife but had been stripped clear of most of its wildlife by 1993. However the trajectory of conservation efforts in Khonoma in the last decade has been awe inspiring.