Religious Tourism and the Environment. Группа авторов

the high pollution levels of the nearby Pushkar Lake.

      In this same vein, while tourist behaviour reflects a certain disregard for religious protocol and a more hedonistic attitude towards sacred places, pilgrim behaviour is seen as being determined by religious protocol and therefore reflective of a sensitive relationship and sacred tie to the pilgrimage site (Cohen, 1992; Olsen and Timothy, 2006). Vukonić (1996), in describing some commonly-held perceptions regarding pilgrims and tourists, notes that ‘The pilgrim steps gently on to holy soil; the tourist overruns holy places and photographs their remains. The pilgrim travels with humility and patience; the tourist travels arrogantly and in a hurry.’

       Discourse, Materiality, and Management

      The importance of understanding religious values as they shape perceptions about environmental problems in sacred places cannot be emphasized enough, particularly because they affect how sacred destinations are managed. The management of religious tourism sites has increasingly become an area of academic inquiry, highlighting the importance of quality visitor infrastructure and interpretational services as ways to minimize negative impacts on the natural and human-built environment (e.g. Olsen, 2006a; Raj and Morpeth, 2007; Zamani-Farahani and Henderson, 2010; Henderson, 2011; Shinde, 2012a; Bond et al., 2015). However, even the implementation of best practices in crowd management can be overwhelmed in instances where the scale and frequency of visitation is such that no amount of management and control can stop negative impacts from occurring.

      Some scholars argue from a public administration perspective that the real problem is the absence of a strong formal governance structure focusing specifically on pilgrimage and religious tourism and its environmental impacts (van Der Veer, 1988; Alley, 2002; FoV, 2006; Shinde, 2011; Raj and Griffin, 2015). As Tanner and Mitchell (2002, p. 204) note, environmental management is ‘a political activity with little stress on religious considerations [,] even in states which are officially [claimed as religious] such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’. Also, religious views of pilgrimage and its (non)impact on the natural and human-built environment can lead to inconsistencies and disagreements over defining environmental issues, often leading to inaction by both government and religious authorities towards minimizing environmental impacts at pilgrimage and religious tourism destinations. Discussions regarding environmental change at pilgrimage destinations are often debated by contrasting the material reality of the environment with the abstract notion of sacred space. For instance, several scholars have noted the tendency of Hindu pilgrims and religious functionaries to compare the contemporary state of the environment of pilgrimage sites with a glorious past rooted in mythology or in the concept of transcendence (Haberman, 1994; Lochtefeld, 2010). This comparison relies on a fixed notion of the other worldly divine quality of sacred space that reinforces the sanctity of a pilgrimage site while outright ignoring the negative impacts of pilgrims and pilgrimage practices on the physical environment. This discourse of transcendence therefore produces conflicting views regarding who is responsible for managing the natural and human-built environment of a sacred place (Freitag, 1989; Alley, 2002). Religious actors often invoke tradition to justify their use of environmental resources for religious practices while claiming no responsibility for and management of its impacts. Such dissonance produces an environment of neglect and apathy, shifting the responsibilities of environmental management to government entities that may not have the financial or technical resources to do so (Shinde, 2011).

      Following the ethical–moral perspectives and inherent teachings of many religious traditions regarding respect for nature, a few studies have found that religious institutions that place a strong ethic and concern on environmental stewardship are more effective at addressing environmental degradation at their sacred sites (Grim and Tucker, 1994; Sullivan, 1998; Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli, 2000). One illustrative example is the Vrindavan Conservation Project in India. Vrindavan is a pilgrim-town dedicated to the Hindu god Krishna and is believed to be Krishna’s recreational playground. As a part of this project, religious gurus have taken the lead to restore the forests in the name of Krishna and encourage other stakeholders to be more environmentally responsible (for more details see Prime, 2008; Nash, 2012; Chapter 4, this volume).

       The Ecosystem of Religious Tourism: A Conceptual Model

      The creation of a general theory regarding the intersections between religion, tourism, and the environment needs to move beyond the documentation of the environmental impacts of religious tourism which, although necessary, remains incomplete. In Fig. 1.2, the authors propose a simplistic conceptual model that can help understand the ecosystem of religious tourism that occurs in sacred places.

      Sacred places are specific environments that connect elements of nature with sacred values using belief systems, mythology, cosmology, history, and culture involving religious faiths. The material manifestation of places imbued with such values generates a unique spirit of place and a natural, sociocultural, and physical environment. Both the physical and metaphysical nature of these places are articulated through religious frameworks and their meanings experienced through rituals and performances. As such, travelling to engage with the spirit of these places becomes the focus of religious tourism. Travel in and of itself becomes the cause of change in the physical and spiritual nature of these places. How the environment is impacted and changes depends largely on the nature of religious mobilities and the ways in which religious and governmental institutions mediate experiences with the sacred. This process is dialectical and leads to a continuous evolution of the people who visit, the people that live there, and the institutions that manage the place.

      Fig. 1.2. A conceptual model of the relationships between religion, tourism, and the environment.

      This theoretical model can be illustrated using a setting of a generic pilgrim-town. In this town, there are several institutions that interact with each other to produce and reproduce the ecosystem within which religious tourism operates. These institutions can be broadly classified into five groups, which are not exclusive of each other and can have significant overlap between them. The first, and probably most significant, includes leaders of religious establishments – the gurus, and the ritual priests that form the core of the pilgrimage industry and are central to the catering for the religious and spiritual wants and needs of pilgrims. These ‘religious entrepreneurs’ seek to establish and maintain relationships of patronage with individuals, families, or community groups that invest in religious buildings and charities and engage in ritual performances. Second, the pilgrimage/ religious tourism industry is also comprised of several people engaged in supplementary trades that provide goods and services to visitors. Their activities depend on broader socioeconomic processes and factors, such as the economic status of patrons and pilgrims, patterns of visitation, modes of travel, availability and types of transportation, and the frequency of travel, among others.

      Third, residents form an important institution within this pilgrim-town. Although religious entrepreneurs and tradespersons may form part of this category, residents also include devotees and other social groups that may serve religious establishments and businesses or work in other sectors of an urban economy. The fourth group of institutions are those involved in the governance and maintenance of the pilgrimage-town. These institutions may include state agencies operating across different scalar levels, such as municipalities and state government departments, as well as other corporate religious bodies and civic associations that are often classified as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). One notable example of this is the Sathya Sai Baba Trust in Puttaparti in Andhra Pradesh, India, that was established in 1972 by a highly revered guru named Sri Sathya Sai Baba. This trust has contributed significantly to the building of infrastructure and environmental services in the town of Puttaparti. Consisting of more than 10,000 employees, the trust runs an independent university and implements charitable projects providing social welfare in the region. One of its much discussed environmental projects is the water supply project that it has developed in partnership with the state government and a private sector company to provide drinking water in 750 villages in the Andhra Pradesh state (Parthasarthy, 2002). The fifth institutional group