Now Reading: Uttarakhand plans climate-first growth, ecotourism push by 2047
-
01
Uttarakhand plans climate-first growth, ecotourism push by 2047
Uttarakhand will put climate resilience at the centre of its long-term development plan, according to Dr Manoj Kumar Pant, director of planning for the state government. "In all our future planning, we…
The Story in Brief
Uttarakhand will put climate resilience at the centre of its long-term development plan, according to Dr Manoj Kumar Pant, director of planning for the state government. "In all our future planning, we will have to put climate at the centre of the discussion," he said in an episode of The Times of India's Uttarakhand Forward 2.0 series. Pant outlined a Vision 2047 that aims to reduce distress migration by creating livelihoods in hill and rural areas through better connectivity and technology, including the concept of "work from the hills."
Separately, Prasanna Kumar Patro, managing director of the Uttarakhand Ecotourism Development Corporation, laid out a green tourism roadmap focused on small, low-impact destinations and local community participation. Patro called for a shift from mass tourism to "value tourism" and said new destinations should be "less capital intensive, less carbon footprint" to reduce pressure on popular spots while spreading benefits to remote areas.
The Indian Opinion
These two visions, climate-first planning and ecotourism, sound promising, but Uttarakhand has struggled to curb unregulated construction and mass pilgrim traffic. The state's own forest department reports rising human-wildlife conflicts and forest fires. The test is not the roadmap but the budget. Will the next state budget allocate more to conservation than to new highways? That number will reveal whether 2047 is a slogan or a strategy.
Sources (2): timesofindia.indiatimes.com, timesofindia.indiatimes.com (2)
This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources.
