A Comparative Analysis on the Socio-economic Welfare of Dependents of the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) in India

Biodiversity is a valuable and yet poorly understood natural resource, depleting rapidly through human interventions. The economic value of biodiversity in a forest ecosystem includes its direct-use value and indirect-use value for the ecological regulatory services it provides. The Western Ghats is one of the world’s 25 biodiversity hotspots and forest ecosystem that are protected as the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR). This study was undertaken with the objective of asserting the consumptive and passive use values of the ATR as well as to examine the people’s attitudes towards consumption and sustainable use of natural resources and forest biodiversity.To estimate the direct-use value, the sample respondents, namely, agriculture and forest dependents within the fringe areas and tourist dependents in urban areas, were selected. Education and income were positively related to per capita consumption expenditure and were highly significant. Family size and landholdings had negative influences on both agriculture and forest dependents and tourist dependents. It was concluded that the development of ecotourism will reduce forest dependents and enhance their income through tourism-related occupations by creating more employment and other related income-generating activities besides protecting the valuable natural resources through optimal and sustainable use.