Authors’ Background: Author Arnab Basu is a sustainability consultant, an environmental writer, and a wildlife enthusiast. He has more than two decades of experience in advisory work on sustainability, nature-based solutions, and environmental law. He is also known for titles like, “A Silver Lining In The Ease Of Doing Business Conundrum” and “The Journey Through Holocene!” Well, this particular title, “Pseudo Ecotourism” is published by Ukiyoto Publishing and is released in April 2024. Also, the book is available in both paperback and in e-book format and the readers can find this learning-worthy title on all the top online marketplaces!

Questionnaire:

TLT: Deeply Congratulations on your book, “Pseudo Ecotourism!” What kind of responses are you getting from this book of yours? Please share your experience with this book.

Arnab Basu:

Thank you very much. So far, it’s overwhelming. The positive responses are not just from the ecotourism and sustainability fraternity but also from the general readers who love wildlife and nature tourism and care for the sustainability of this planet. Honestly, that was my main goal, to intrigue common people about ecotourism and its importance as an influencer to promote sustainability.

TLT: What inspired you to write a book, keeping ‘Ecotourism’ as the primary subject matter? What was the impetus behind this work of yours?

Arnab Basu:

A decade back I started wildlife photography and ecotourism as hobbies primarily to become the most interesting person in the room. However, as I went deeper into these hobbies and interacted more and more with various other people directly and indirectly related to these hobbies, I started noticing a correlation between these hobbies and my profession of sustainability. That made me realize the need to tell stories to other hobbyist wildlife photographers/ecotourists about this correlation. Hence, this book was conceptualized.

TLT: Can you please tell us in which ways can the ordinary citizens be made aware of the ‘Environmental Laws!’

Arnab Basu:

In India, all the environmental laws are available for reading in the public domain. This is true in the Global context as well. But reading these laws on the internet could be very boring unless you don’t have any professional or academic interest. Therefore, I believe sustainability and environmental professionals have a role to play here. There could be more popular reading materials with real-life stories, written by professionals and experts, made available for common people. My book Pseudo Ecotourism in the Shadow of The Bengal Tiger is written with one such purpose.

One of my colleagues, who is also a renowned Biodiversity expert, Dr. Arun Venkataraman, once told me that, he had read many such books that highlighted the importance of sustainable tourism but all those books were directed for professionals and other interested groups. Pseudo Ecotourism is of a kind book he read that has common people as target readers.

TLT: What was your mindset, while working on this book? What are some of the major points which you expect the readers to extract from this book?

Arnab Basu:

The book is an outcome of my last decade of ecotourism and wildlife photography in the Indian subcontinent – India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan. However, when I picked up this hobby, I didn’t have any intention to write a book about it. All I doing was maintaining a travelogue and keeping a journal of whatever I saw and whoever I met. 

Then at the end of 2018, when I was traveling from Dhaka to the Khulna district of Bangladesh by train, to explore Bangladeshi Sundarbans, something unfortunate happened during that train journey, which forced me to abort my Sundarbans trip. I don’t want to give away much here, as that story is there in my book.

But all I can say is that because of that incident I got stuck in Bangladesh for some time, and that created an opportunity for me to further introspect my hobby. This compelled me to wonder, why we urban affluent folks pick up hobbies despite having a well-paid and decent day job.

There could be many reasons behind that, but one reason emerged as very obvious in front of me was our desire for fame and glory. That doesn’t mean we don’t achieve fame and glory in our corporate day job. But that corporate yardstick of fame and glory doesn’t satisfy our natural self.

This natural self of human put them in dilemma. The dilemma is between what they are achieving in their corporate job and what they want to achieve as their natural self. This dilemma gradually makes them obsessed with nature and non-human life forms. I witnessed this dilemma and obsession in some of the characters that I illustrated in my book, including myself. I have also witnessed how the fame and glory achieved through this obsession can create arrogance among humans. Arrogance makes humans think they are the rulers of nature. And, I also witnessed this human arrogance getting shattered by non-human life forms.

Exactly one year after my aborted Bangladeshi Sundarbans trip I witnessed another horrific incident in Indian Sundarbans. Again, without giving away anything, as this incident is also narrated in my book, I only want to say that “humans are just another life form in nature”. That emerged as a harsh reality in front of me.

I am a sustainability professional. Therefore, I couldn’t help but find the correlation between this human dilemma and arrogance of supremacy with ecotourism.

What is the overarching purpose of ecotourism? – It’s not getting entertained or achieving fame and glory. It’s rather getting aware of the environment and ecosystem and experiencing the authenticity of nature. But the hobby of ecotourism and wildlife photography which is perceived as a means of achieving fame and glory defeats that purpose. This scenario becomes quite adverse and at times unethical, when this whole ecotourism and wildlife photography is focused on one single species. In the subcontinental forest, this single species is Bengal Tiger.

During my decade-long exploration of the subcontinental forest, I saw how ecotourists, wildlife photographers, nature guides, resort owners, tour operators, and even forest departments are racing with each other for that so-called “fame and glory” and becoming obsessed with a tiger. As a result, the apex predator, the protector of forest and ecosystem has been transformed into a mere object of photography, a trophy to be possessed by ecotourists.

I started my journey of ecotourism as a tiger tourist and tiger photographer to achieve fame and glory outside of my professional area. But this journey eventually compelled me to ask questions about this Pseudo Ecotourism in the Shadow of the Bengal Tiger.

TLT: How is this book of yours different from the other titles of the same genre?

Arnab Basu:

As I said before, there are many books written on the concept of sustainability and the importance of ecotourism. However, there are not many written to influence common people about ecotourism and its importance in sustainability.

As a sustainability professional, I would like to call this book a “book of sustainability”. However, in reality, sustainability is not at the forefront of this book, rather it’s situated at the very core, hidden by various layers. These layers are – layers of human relationships, human desire for fame and glory, materialism, commodity fetishism, etc. And, perhaps the most prominent layer around the core concept of this book is adventurism in forests and mountains. Which involves, surviving in difficult climatic conditions, challenging terrain, dealing with animal attacks, etc. I feel, my readers will enjoy swimming through these layers and eventually reach the very core of this book – which is sustainability.

TLT: Can you please tell us about those vital steps that the government & the citizens can take for ensuring a true & healthy sustainability in ecotourism?

Arnab Basu:

First of all, the Forest department and ecotourism organizations of government including private ecotour companies should get actively involved in raising awareness of common ecotourists. There should be a movement in generating ecosystem awareness and ensuring authentic experience of nature, through ecotourism.

To do so, Government and Private players have to stay away from the commoditization of one single species in their ecotourism offerings. This single species-focused ecotourism not just has a detrimental effect on the species itself but also defeats the overarching purposes of ecotourism.

Therefore, Government and Private players have to promote the wholesomeness of nature in their ecotourism offerings, which should include every flora and fauna – mammals, herbivores, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects, aquatic species and their habitats. Forests, mountains, grasslands, wetlands, rivers, deserts everything and their importance in sustainability of this planet should be conveyed to ecotourists through ecotourism activities.

The other important part, where both government and private organizations have an immense role to play is promoting local community and indigenous people. More often than not they are the real conservators of forest and cohabiting with nature and wild lives. If they are the partners to ecotourism activities then not only, they will be socio-economically benefit, the ecotourists will also be enlightened about their role in conservation and sustainability.

This is what I mean by “inclusive ecotourism”.

TLT: Which segment of readers is your primary target through this book of yours? And, how is your book relevant in the present-day scenario?

Arnab Basu:

 My target readers are hobbyist ecotourists and wildlife photographers, as well as people who loves nature and wildlife but not yet there into these hobbies. It is a memoir, suitable for 10+ age group readers. Besides hobbyist ecotourists and wildlife photographers, I think this book should also be read by Ecotourism companies, travel companies, organizations working for wildlife, and organizations working for forest right of indigenous people. 

TLT: Is there any message that you would like to convey to your readers? Or any piece of advice, which you would like to give to the wildlife enthusiasts out there!

Arnab Basu:

Pseudo Ecotourism is a narration of various events as I experienced as a nature explorer in the last one decade in four tiger range countries (India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan) of this subcontinent. At times those were exciting, pleasant, and entertaining, and at other times those were fearful, nerve-wracking, breadth taking and traumatic. The book is to appeal to hobbyist ecotourists/wildlife photographers to shift their obsession from the single species-oriented ecotourism/photography towards an inclusive ecotourism/photography.

I strongly believe, an ordinary human who takes part in ecotourism or clicks pictures of nature and her rare flora and fauna, despite not being a wildlife expert, helps in dispersing the splendors of nature and wildlife among many other ordinary humans who haven’t yet experienced these. This makes the hobbies of ecotourism and wildlife photography powerful influencers in promoting the concept of nature-based solution. The solution to save the planet, which is hidden within nature herself.

My appeal to me readers through this book is to let such hobbies become inclusive. So that the beneficial impacts are bestowed equally upon all living life forms, not just on one single species.

Therefore, my key message to the world is, let us together embrace an inclusive ecotourism, where every human and non-human life form have equal place and let us discard the pseudo-ecotourism from this beautiful planet, we call home.

TLT: Are there any other books being worked by you? Please let us know about your future projects.

Arnab Basu:

Right now, my only goal is to ensure the maximum outreach of the key message of this book. That is embracing inclusive ecotourism aka wholistic ecotourism and discarding pseudo ecotourism aka single species centric ecotourism. Therefore, now I am only working on that outreach part and writing another book is not really part of my immediate plan.

TLT: Thank you so much for answering all my questions. All the very best to you for future and your book too!

Arnab Basu:

Thank you very much once again