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Eco-tourism society gets on with creating membership

Anupama Sushil - New Delhi

Four months after its inception, the Ecotourism Society of India is looking at signing on new members. "In the past few months, the society has not been functioning to its full capacity, however it is currently all geared up to start a membership drive," said Mandip Singh Soin, founder member, Ecotourism society of India.

The membership drive will help initiate the process towards better eco tourism practices, by getting more members to sign up. Accordingly, the members will be inducted only after strict scrutiny as only serious players are intended to be awarded membership. This is in keeping with the view that a dedicated membership will ensure better practices and efforts in the future, he said.

Further he also mentioned that the ministry of tourism is almost ready with its eco tourism policy for India to be announced shortly, which has already been reviewed and ratified by few of the founder members and others. The society is also working closely with many rural tourism projects, besides enthusiastically promoting ecotourism.

In addition, the environmental awareness course that the society planned to start in association with the World Wide Fund, will now be formulated and is scheduled to begin soon. "The course will help individuals from the tourism industry to learn more about the law and how to abide by it by helping them understand different ways of protecting the environment of a particular place," stated Soin.