Eco-tourism based livelihoods of local indigenous communities situated in and around Chilika Lake and the Gopalpur seacoast are significantly impacted by climate change, reduction in biodiversity, and lack of economic infrastructure for value creation. In order to address both environmental and livelihood related challenges the school of Humanities, IIT, BBSR & Development And Environment Futures Trust (DEFT) are jointly implementing a project titled “Multi-Scale Place-Based Green Tourism Interventions for Just and Sustainable Transitions in the Context of Lake Chilikaas Blue Economy”. The project is supported by the Mac Arthur Foundation, USA. The ambition is to have a Green Tourism Corridor (GTC) along the Chilika and sea coastline that is maintained and managed sustainably through a partnership among Gram Panchayats (GPs), community organisations, and homestay providers.

The project is being implemented in collaboration with the School of Humanities, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bhubaneswar and funded by The Mac Arthur Foundation, USA. Since the launch of the project, DEFT is actively playing a pivotal role in both the research and fieldwork. A situation analysis has been completed in which rurban assets (Infrastructure facilities) have been identified and an approach to their management and use has been developed in consultation with local stakeholders. The focus for activating the rurban assets encompasses three key areas –“Solid Waste Management (especially addressing the plastic menace)”, “EV led mobility and transport”, and “RE linked value chain development”.

Moreover, community consultations on homestay provision and management are ongoing and solid waste management, and the other on Eco-tourism based livelihoods economy value chain. These surveys aim to identify potential societal needs that the project can address.

As part of the project responsibility to promote the importance of Eco-tourism based livelihoods and local economy development, a six day capacity building programme was organised for a group of 20 young nature-conservators and tour guides by DEFT, IIT Bhubaneswar and Centre for Environmental Studies (CES), BBSR at the Balugaon campus of Chilika Development Authority (CDA), Govt. of Odisha.