Tourism
Balanced Development Needed

By Rebati Raman Paudel

IN the past, the study of tourism was commonly thought to be a superficial activity. Tourism was simply defined as an activity dependent on three operative elements: discretionary income leisure time and social sanctions permissive of travel. However, at present the research has touched upon these elements and their possible impact on host communities has been given importance. With the advent of the new millenium, tourist activity and its impact have become of great importance to a changing world, where more and more people have the opportunity of becoming tourists, and/or of having contact with a tourist in some way.

To perceive tourism as a cultural industry is to acknowledge the natural environment and destinations as part of the cultural package. As tourism develops into a major international, as well as a national industry, questions and debates about sustainability, authenticity, social impacts, indigenous cultures, and so on reflect the cultural dimension of tourism. The planners need to identify and address the accepted and unaccepted forms and limits to tourism. They also need to answer whether these new forms of tourism especially rural tourism or indigenous/ethnic tourism, ecotourism and even adventure tourism are instructive upon the destination community.

Tourism and preservation may appear to be strange bed fellows but with proper management they are a winning combination. Sustainable tourism can bring improved income and living standards for local people. It can revitalise local culture, especially traditional crafts and customs. It can stimulate the rural economy by creating demand for agricultural produce and inject capital in the rural areas.

With consumers becoming increasingly attracted to environmentally sound holidays, the adoption of sustainable practices enhances the corporate image. But most important for world heritage, sustainable tourism contributes to the conservation and protection of natural and cultural features generates additional finance and fosters greater public and local awareness of protected areas and the environment. The simple fact is that sharing heritage with visitors means reaping the economic benefit of tourism.

Technically, heritage tourism is defined as the phenomenon in which the cultural, historical and ethnic components of a society of place are harnessed as resources to attract tourists, as well as develop a leisure and tourism Industry. However, this has often been criticised in many parts of the globe for converting local cultures and lifestyle into commodities for sale to foreign audiences. It is also argued that making culture a commodity contributes to loss of social customs, the alienation of residents and the creation of homogeneity between places. Sometimes many planners warn that the economic allure of tourism and the need to cater to tourism is a key reason for the ‘mythic reconstruction’ of places and the falsification of histories and identities.

A number of important points have been raised throwing light on the wider context of commodification of heritage.

Firstly, communal assertion of identity, local appreciation of heritage and civic awareness have continued to the new urban renaissance. Changes in the urban cultural landscapes are best understood, as the outcome of the multiple factors interacting with one another. So it would be an oversight to consider local cultures passive and proclaim tourism as the most important agent of social change.

Secondly, heritage has not been considered a relic but a dynamic and multi purpose resources or a form of capital that has been molded and transformed for diverse audience. The commodification process has helped to balance between visitors and local community by fulfilling the needs of residents that could have been either in a marginalised or totally neglected form. It has become possible for the heritage entrepreneur to serve multiple goals at one time without alienation any particular group of people.

Heritage tourism products are geared towards global audience as well as home communities and it is imperative to explore the heritage development process as traversing the tourist local divide. Heritage development takes varied forms in different places depending on the success of the planning authority or entrepreneur in bridging the tourist local rift.

The number of world heritage sites within Nepal’s small limited area has earmarked the importance and authentic nature of its culture, tradition and ethnicity. These heritage sites have become an indisputable resource for the development and promotion of tourism in the urban sector of country. However, some of the important sites have already disappeared, and many are under threat. In this crucial state if necessary action or well organised programmes for conservation is not initiated, much of our heritage may disappear within a very short period of time. Though some international organisations and national heritage conservation programmes seem active on conserving our heritage, still some of them are in the list of endangered sites.

The 1972 convention concerning the protection of the world culture and natural heritage was adopted by UNESCO in response to increasing threats to sites of cultural and natural heritage, especially in countries that have neither the financial nor the technical and scientific resources they need to mitigate the dangers. The convention underscores the fact that physical cultural heritage and in many cases, natural heritage are non renewable, irreplaceable resources. More and more sites are at risk of degradation as a direct or indirect result of urbanisation, natural resources exploitation, population growth, pollution and through modern industrial civilisation. A site’s physical and cultural integrity also faces an array of indirect threats: atmosphere pollution, traffic vibration, encroachment and instructive commercial development.

For this reason, site management must take into account local and national plans, forcasts of demographic growth or decline, economic factors, traffic projections and industrial zoning and preventing measures to mitigate various type of man made and natural disasters. Successful protection and maintenance of world heritage requires continuous assessment, inventory and information management research and administration. It is the process that guarantees a world heritage site’s survival as a sustainable resource.

Problems And Challenges Of Ageing

By Jhabindra Bhandari

MAHA Shanker Devkota, 63, from Jumla – a remote district of the country came to the capital city in order to participate in the first ever national consultation and preparatory workshop for Second World Assembly on Ageing organized by Nepal Participatory Action Network (NEPAN) in partnership with HelpAge International. that kicked off recently.

Representing the common voices and concerns of older people, Maha Shanker – a very dynamic personality urged the policymakers and planners to address elderly issues in development and stressed the emerging needs to ensure older people’s rights to life and health. And more importantly, their role in the families should be recognised and valued to lead elderly life with dignity.

Adds Harsa Devi Syangtan, in her early seventees and one of the participants from Makwanpur: " Now we need family support and care as we face many problems in the old age. The government and civil society should bring innovative programmes for older people so that their livelihood become easy and comfortable."

The prime purpose of this participatory workshop was to discuss key elderly issues that affect development in the Nepalese context and present this in the Second World Assembly on Ageing that is going to be held in Madrid, Spain in 8-12, April this year.

It is hoped that the new strategy will be adopted at the assembly that covers a wide range of issues such as health and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, contributions of older people, housing, income security, social services and many others. This is, in fact, an important attempt to ensure policy makers listen to and act on the views of the older people.

This is the first time, Nepal is also participating in the Second Assembly to raise elderly issues so that solid plans of action can be formulated to improve the lives of older people – who are facing many problems of poverty, health care, social security, family isolation and so on. There is an urgent need of national response to address a wide range of elderly issues in development planning and policy formulation.

More importantly, this assembly will provide an important forum to end age discrimination. The elderly issues are therefore receiving increasing priority as the population of older people is gradually on the rise.

In the national workshop, the three concept papers related to ageing and development were discussed in participatory approach in different perspectives. Firstly, the forum tried to appraise civil society perspective on poverty, vulnerability and old age insecurity. Secondly, an analysis of government’s policy and programme on senior citizens, and thirdly, population ageing in Nepal and its applications had the interesting floor discussions.

It is important to mention here that NEPAN in partnership with HelpAge International, for the first time, has accomplished participatory research on elderly issues in selected 15 districts of the country. The key issues and findings of this research have already been disseminated at the regional level for local response.

As older people are the living history of society, it is very important to utilize their indigenous knowledge, skills and experiences for socio-economic development. But the reality is that the issue of older people’s participation in development is almost a neglected issue. Even the civil society is not bringing this agenda seriously and on the other hand, the government’s policy and programmes need to be effectively implemented.

The first World Assembly on Ageing was held in Vienna in 1982 –where voices of the older people were discussed in depth and developed "Vienna Plan of Action" as an important outcome. The particular issues and views of older people will help feed into the strategy through advocacy at all levels.

The year 1999 was also a major landmark as it aimed at drawing attention of policy makers and planners to focus on elderly issues in the development process. Based on these initiatives, there has been increasing realisation that elderly programmes should be focussed on right-based approach, rather than welfare approach.

Though a few elderly homes have been established in different parts of the country, these are not enough in itself. Majority of the elderly people who are living in these elderly homes express their desire to live with their families, but they are compelled to leave their homes as they lack social respect, care and support in the families.

The government’s operational strategy towards senior citizens explicitly pinpoints development of family based security system and formulation of necessary laws so as to guarantee social security and protect elderly rights. The old age allowance to the senior citizens is , of course, a welcome step. However, there needs participatory review and follow up on whether they have easy access to these social services.

It is time to initiate solid action by allocating national and local resources to improve the livelihoods of older people. Therefore, integrated community development efforts should ensure older people’s participation in development. This is also important to make credit, employment, training and education schemes available to people regardless of age. The role of NGOs is vital to air elderly issues through workshops, panel discussions and exhibitions in different forum.

Recognising the human rights of older people and the benefits of ageing population for human development, there should be strong political will and commitment to plan and implement programmes to guarantee social protection and minimum income in old age. Older people’s participation in development should therefore be an integral part of national development.

Doctors Of Different Types

By Babu Ram Neupane

THERE is no doubt that our society has unity in diversity. When I read the newspapers, I find the diversity so mind boggling that I can’t resist appreciating some writers who have been able to tame their ego. But there are some writers whose motive is to advertise them before they start what they have to say. I don’t know when the tradition of self-aggrandizement began.

It is too difficult for me to distinguished between appearance and reality. I think appearance deciphers the ego. Long back an Athenian philosopher, Plato, had shed light on illusion of human beings regarding their conception of form and content. I firmly believe in content. Form is the mask. Content is the reality. Even if people wrap their appearances, they are unable to hide the actual reality. It spills in myriad forms.

Scholars speak the truth beautifully. But the problem with them is that they never forget to embroider their names with the abstract and ambivalent word "doctor’. I often get perplexed at the riddle of this word. This can mean anything. One of my friends is abnormally bitter to those who hang this word before their names but I am not so critical about it. My friend says that ‘Dr’ means a sort of dar (fear) of being pushed into oblivion. It is a word that represents snobbery. A medical doctor is used to dissecting the organs. But how to identify whether the writer in hand is medical or academic? The academic one shouldn’t put an acquired title before his name. It’s true that the medical doctors are never sure of their capacity. So they experiment on every patient. It is required of them to be in association with their titles in case they fail in their experiments due to wrong diagnoses. Otherwise they may be charged of murder. Exasperated by the frequency modulation stations’ children programmes, voices that mostly want to become doctors. I also reached the conclusion that it is not that the population is increasing so fast compared to the number of doctors increasing in our locality. They might have realised the truth that no doctor is component .

When it comes to the case of the academic doctors, they are undoubtedly the experts in some discipline. The concerned discipline is their priority domain. But how come they abuse their achievement in one field to deceive the readers? A medical doctor writes a poem with doctor title before his name and the subject is the sickening country. A doctor in political science does the same to write on fiscal policy of the government. A doctor in literature writes on politics and exhibits his title without failing. This saga of the doctors is a long one. How many Mr Know Alls are there in our country?

I don’t have any ill feelings to their curiosity in exploring new fields of identity. Nonetheless, such a snobbery reflects the flippancy pervasive around us. Those who are sensitive don’t misuse their titles decorated in honour of their perspiration in the related field. Those with juvenile and frivolous view of the world abuse them.

These are the testing times for the readers to find out as to who is writing why and what. If the medical doctors are writing the poems with the private clinics and the nursing homes open almost round the clock, there must be the lack of patients. They must have been suffering somewhere else outside Kathmandu valley, a place the doctors love to be in. If the academic doctors are writing at random, it must be the government that has not provided them with a due role. If they are writing not properly carrying out their responsibilities, it is their hypocrisy. This has a positive side anyway. We can show the world how many doctors we have. Consequently we will be donated and invigorated. Why conceal the fact so obvious to our destiny? If destiny and density were to be chosen between, I would choose density. For density is ensured. At least dentistry would add a new dimension and glamour in the alms begging tradition.