Small wonder, the Union government’s erstwhile planning commissions recognised the need to promote tourism, particularly in the Himalayas where villages are seeing rapid migration of youth.
However, the Himalayan region is not only ecologically fragile but also vulnerable to other natural disasters, such as avalanches, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs, or a sudden release of a large amount of water retained in a glacial lake), mass movements or landslides and cloudbursts.
Himalayan towns, especially those with high and uncontrolled tourist footfalls, are mushrooming with unplanned and unregulated structures that are often not in accordance with the geology and ecology of the area.
While a sustainable and balanced approach is needed to check unregulated tourism, so far, it has been challenging for policy planners to delineate a suitable plan of action that could judiciously balance development and environmental conservation.
BALANCED TOURISM 
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