HIMALAYAN NATURE-BASED TOURISM. POTENTIAL, REGIONAL DIVERSITY, NATURE CONSERVATION AND TOURISTIC LOAD.

Mountains are popular sites for tourism and annually, multitudes of hikers, trekkers, and climbers converge on these areas. The Himalayas, a delicate ecosystem is being invaded by increasing levels of tourism activity. As a consequence of the increase in tourism, the pressure on naturally fragile ecosystems is growing and can lead to a serious conflict between the vulnerable environment and bringing changes to the tourism industry. That is why more and more Protected Areas (PAs) within the Himalayas have been designated. Currently, in the Himalayas there are 34 national parks and 92 areas under other protection. Overall, the entire range (547,960km2) contains over 79,008km2 of PAs that account for almost 14.5% of the landmass, and almost reach the Aichi Target 11 benchmark of 17%. The Bhutanese Himalayas are unrivalled and almost 43% of the country is protected. Arunachal Himalayas have the smallest PA - just almost 5%. Overall, due to the low level of economic development in the Himalayan countries, there is currently no possibility of realizing a comprehensive, rational and balanced approach to nature protection and tourism in the region. There are ongoing attempts to selectively preserve areas characterised by primary nature and rare flora and fauna, and balance pro-poor development objectives with conservation goals. Through, mapping and calculating the areas under conservation this paper flags improvements necessary to reach Aichi Targets. Thus, this paper also describes the spatial and temporal development of protected areas in the whole Himalayan range. This research showed that 79% of all PAs, that is 78 PAs, was established in the years 1970-1999. The listing process peaked in the years 1985-1994, a decade in which 30.879km2 were designated, accounting for almost 39% of the total PAs in the Himalayas. However, the trend has slowed in recent years. Sensing an increasingly vulnerable resource-base, more protected areas should be designated in the near future in line with the Convention of Biodiversity's Aichi Targets. This paper is the first part of a comprehensive study about Himalayan PAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]