1. The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) defines ecotourism as "responsible travel to natural areas that conserve the environment and sustain the well-being of local people."
2. Responsible tourism observes basic eco-ethical tenets. Fundamental rights like the right to exist or to live in peace, right to pure air and pure water are basic rights even for wildlife, indigenous people as well as for nature as a whole.
3. Nature tourism and wildlife tourism are top priority for most foreign tourists, but in the Indian context, all picnics, nature walks, nature camps, trekking, hiking, safaris, jungle trails, mountaineering, cultural tours, pilgrimages, beaching, water sports, canoeing, boating and game-fishing should all observe eco-ethics. One step forward in ecotourism is to get involved in eco-restoration, biodiversity restoration and eco-development of local people in any degraded tourist ecosystem.
4. India, with her kaleidoscopic ecosystems and a wealth of cultural heritage of great antiquity has immense scope for ecotourism. Constant research to identify newer areas and spots for eco-tourism, preparing brochures on them and on the eco-ethics relevant to each, organising environmental trails and training knowledgeable guides, preferably using the services of the local people are the obligations of the tourism department.
5. This novel concept of ecotourism is so visionary that in the long run, it would be much viable economically, sustainable ecologically, acceptable socially and ideal philosophically rather than traditional tourism.
Responsible tourism or ecotourism means:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → tourism respecting the rights of nature, animals and people
Paragraph 2 says that responsible tourism observes basic eco-ethical tenets: the right to exist, to live in peace, and to pure air and pure water are basic rights "even for wildlife, indigenous people as well as for nature as a whole". So responsible tourism or ecotourism means tourism that respects the rights of nature, animals and people.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: tourism that brings the highest profit — Incorrect. Contradicted: the passage never makes profit the aim. Ecotourism is meant to conserve the environment and sustain the well-being of local people; paragraph 5 says only that it would be economically viable (able to pay its way) in the long run, not that it earns the most money.
Option 3: tourism to study local wildlife, people and economics — Incorrect. Wrong link: research to find new spots is named as a duty of the tourism department, not as the meaning of ecotourism; studying economics is not mentioned at all.
Option 4: tourism to cover areas of ecological imbalance — Incorrect. Wrong link: restoring degraded ecosystems is called "one step forward" in ecotourism, an extra step and not the meaning of the term; and the aim there is to repair such areas, not merely to visit them.