Tourism Projects in Eco-Sensitive Areas: What Is Allowed?

Tourism in eco-sensitive areas is allowed, but mostly in small, low-impact forms that fit an approved plan. Large commercial resorts are commonly barred close to national parks and sanctuaries, permanent construction is not allowed in notified wetlands, tiger reserve core areas are closed to new tourist infrastructure, and coastal construction follows the CRZ zone by zone. Each kind of area has its own rulebook, and on top of it sit the usual approvals: environmental clearance if the project is large enough, pollution board consent for the STP and DG set, groundwater permission and tree felling permission.

This guide is for hotel and resort developers, homestay owners and investors weighing a site near a forest, beach, lake or hill, and for villagers and residents dealing with a resort that has come up without care. It complements our guide on construction near a wildlife sanctuary, which explains ESZ notifications in general.

Tourism disputes often begin as building disputes, which is why they sit within our work on environmental violations in construction.

The essentials

Can a resort or tourism project come up in an eco-sensitive area?

It can, if it is the kind of tourism the area's rules allow and it has every approval those rules require. The phrase eco-sensitive area covers several different legal categories: eco-sensitive zones around national parks and sanctuaries, tiger reserves, coastal regulation zones, notified wetlands, forest land, and hill regions with their own notifications. A homestay of four rooms in a village inside an ESZ, a seasonal beach shack, or a forest rest house run under a wildlife management plan can be lawful. A 60-room concrete resort at the edge of a sanctuary, a restaurant built into a mangrove strip, or cottages on the bank of a notified lake usually are not.

Two questions decide most cases. First, what does the specific rulebook for that area say about tourism, and at what distance? Second, is the project in fact what it claims to be? Regulators and the NGT look at the built footprint, the number of rooms, whether structures are permanent, how sewage is handled, and whether the project fits the tourism master plan or management plan for the area. The word eco in the brochure counts for nothing.

Which rules apply where

A general map of the regimes. Several can apply to one site, for example a coastal resort next to a sanctuary.

What counts as eco-tourism, and what is just a resort with a nature theme?

Neither the EP Act nor most ESZ notifications define eco-tourism in a single sentence, but the idea that runs through the notifications, management plans and tribunal orders is consistent. Eco-tourism is small in scale, uses temporary or light structures, employs and often belongs to local people, keeps sewage and waste on site under control, does not light up or fence off the forest edge, and respects the area's carrying capacity. Most ESZ notifications tie tourism to a tourism master plan prepared as part of the zonal master plan, and expect new tourism to fit it.

A project that clears trees, pours concrete foundations for cottages, drills borewells, runs DG sets all night, plays music at 11 pm and floodlights the jungle for guests is a commercial resort, whatever it calls itself. When Advocate B.K. Singh reviews a resort's position for an investor, he asks for the site plan and the guest capacity before anything else, because those two documents usually show whether the project will be treated as eco-tourism or as commercial construction.

Resorts and hotels near national parks and sanctuaries

This is where most disputes arise. A common clause in ESZ notifications bars new commercial hotels and resorts within a stated distance of the protected area boundary, often 1 km, or up to the edge of the ESZ if that is nearer, while allowing temporary structures for eco-tourism in line with the tourism master plan. Beyond that distance, new hotels are usually regulated rather than barred. Since each notification is different, a developer must read the one for that park rather than relying on what was allowed near another.

Existing resorts face a different set of limits. They generally continue, but adding rooms, building new blocks or converting staff quarters into guest rooms can be treated as new construction under the notification. Other recurring problems are solar-powered or electric fences that block animal movement, bright lighting, jeep traffic and noise at night, and garbage that draws animals. Each can be raised before the monitoring committee and the forest department, and in serious cases before the NGT.

Beach and coastal tourism under the CRZ rules

On the coast, the CRZ Notification, 2019 decides what tourism can be built and where. Mangroves and other ecologically sensitive areas fall in the most protected category, where tourism construction is essentially ruled out. The 2019 notification allows temporary tourism facilities such as shacks, toilet blocks, change rooms and drinking water points on beaches, including in parts of the no-development zone, subject to conditions. Permanent hotels and resorts are possible only in zones and at distances where the notification permits them, and they need clearance on the recommendation of the state coastal zone management authority.

Temporary facilities have a habit of becoming permanent. A shack that gets a concrete floor, a brick kitchen and a boundary wall is no longer temporary. Our guides on construction near the high tide line and on hotels and resorts violating CRZ rules deal with the coastal side in detail, and our CRZ clearance page covers approvals for developers.

Tourism on forest land, in tiger reserves and in the hills

Using forest land for any non-forest purpose needs prior approval under the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980, the renamed Forest (Conservation) Act. The 2023 amendment treats certain eco-tourism facilities that form part of an approved working plan, wildlife management plan or tiger conservation plan as forestry activities, but challenges to the amendment have been before the Supreme Court, so a private developer should not assume that a facility on forest land is exempt. Land that looks like forest but is recorded otherwise can still be treated as forest, following T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v Union of India (1996).

Tiger reserves follow tourism guidelines issued by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, under which new tourism infrastructure is not allowed in the core or critical tiger habitat and tourism in the buffer is regulated. In the hills, state hill area laws and building rules, slope and landslide restrictions, and special regional notifications under the EP Act, such as the one for the Doon Valley, add further limits. Our page on forest clearance explains the diversion process.

Lakes, wetlands and riverbanks

Notified wetlands are protected by the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, which bar encroachment, reclamation, dumping of solid waste, discharge of untreated sewage and permanent construction, with narrow exceptions such as boat jetties. Lakeside resorts, floating restaurants and houseboats therefore need care: the building may be barred outright, and anything allowed needs proper sewage arrangements and the State Board's consent. City lakes that are not notified wetlands are often protected by master plan buffers instead, explained in our guide on construction in a lake buffer zone.

Riverside camps and glamping sites raise floodplain and sewage issues. Camps on river beaches or floodplains may be barred or seasonal under state rules, and soak pits and toilets close to the water are a frequent ground for complaint. The NGT has dealt with riverside camping and tourism waste in several states, usually by directing regulation, waste and sewage arrangements and removal of structures in the active floodplain.

Approvals a typical resort in a sensitive area may need

Not every project needs all of these. The point is to check each one before construction, not after a complaint.

How to check a tourism site before you invest

This is the order in which we review a site for a developer or homestay owner.

Buying or leasing an existing resort in a sensitive area

Investors often take over running resorts rather than build new ones, and inherit their history along with the furniture. Under the polluter pays principle that the NGT applies, and through consent and clearance conditions that attach to the operation, a new owner can find itself answering for sewage discharge, unapproved cottages or groundwater use that began years earlier. A pending NGT case or an unpaid environmental compensation demand against the property is not wiped out by a change of ownership.

Before signing, ask for every approval and check it against what is actually built: the number of rooms in the CTO against the rooms on the booking site, the footprint in the building permission against the satellite image, and the ESZ or CRZ permission against the location of each block. Ask the State Board and the monitoring committee under RTI whether any notice or complaint is pending. Price the cost of fixing gaps into the deal, or make the seller fix them before completion. Our page on environmental due diligence explains how we approach this.

Homestays, camps and glamping: the grey area

Homestays are encouraged in many states through tourism department registration schemes, and many ESZ notifications are friendly to small, locally run accommodation. Problems begin when a homestay grows. Four rooms in the family house become twelve, then a separate block with a restaurant and a parking lot appears, and the operator is now running a commercial lodge without the permissions a lodge needs. Registration with the tourism department does not replace ESZ, forest or pollution board approvals.

Tents and glamping units are treated by their substance. A tent on a concrete plinth with attached bathroom and septic tank is a permanent structure for practical purposes. Noise is another frequent issue: loudspeakers and public address systems are barred at night from 10 pm to 6 am under the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, except in closed premises, and bonfire parties with music near a forest edge invite both police and forest department action.

Villagers and residents: how to complain about a resort

Begin with documents. File RTIs with the local body for the building permission, with the State Board for the CTE and CTO, with the forest department for any forest or wildlife approval, and with the monitoring committee or coastal authority for any permission under the ESZ or CRZ. A resort without these is in trouble; a resort with them may still be breaching their conditions. Photograph the construction, sewage outlets, felled trees and night lighting, with dates.

Then write to the authority that controls the area: the monitoring committee and DFO for an ESZ, the coastal authority for the CRZ, the wetland authority for a lake, and the State Board for sewage and DG sets. Noise at night goes to the local police and the authority under the Noise Rules. In resort cases that Advocate B.K. Singh has handled for villagers, the turning point was usually an RTI reply showing that the resort's consent covered far fewer rooms than it was actually running.

If the authorities do not act, an original application in the NGT is available for ESZ, CRZ, wetland, forest and pollution issues, within 6 months of when the cause of action first arose, plus up to 60 days for sufficient cause. The NGT commonly sends a joint committee to inspect before it decides.

Mistakes tourism developers make in sensitive areas

• Building first, regularising later. Most sensitive-area rules do not allow after-the-event approval for structures that were barred in the first place.
• Splitting a project to stay under thresholds. Breaking one resort into several small plots or phases to avoid EC or consent is easy to spot and treated as a single project.
• Relying on tourism registration. A tourism licence or homestay registration says nothing about ESZ, CRZ, forest or pollution approvals.
• Ignoring sewage until the season starts. Soak pits and septic tanks near streams are the most common reason a resort ends up before the State Board or the NGT.
• Fencing and lighting the forest edge. Barriers across animal paths and floodlights facing the forest draw objections from the forest department as well as residents.

Papers that matter in tourism disputes

Where to go next

If the tourism project sits on a river floodplain or coastal strip marked for no development, see our guide on construction in a no-development zone. For sewage and DG set approvals, see our page on consent to establish. Developers of larger resorts should also read our guide on environmental clearance for building projects, and anyone dealing with wildlife approvals can see our wildlife and ESZ page.