Hyderabad: The state government on Thursday took the first step for designing comprehensive ecotourism policy and practices by appointing a consultative committee to be chaired by environment and forests minister Konda Surekha.
The committee will have senior officials from the forest, tribal welfare, endowments departments, working along with those from the Forest Development Corporation, representatives from Confederation of Indian Industries, Zoological Survey of India, as well as from non-governmental organisations including the World Wide Fund for Nature.
The committee has been tasked to identify land outside protected areas, irrigation and tribal welfare land suitable for ecotourism, forest areas where ecotourism can be practiced, suggest business models to encourage public-private partnership, evolve strategies to enrich livelihoods of those living in such identified areas, and strategies to develop existing national parks, zoological parks for tourism activities.
The government said the committee should submit its report in three months.
