- Visitor data analysed at Ralamandal Wildlife Sanctuary showed that visitors are highly seasonal, with most of them arriving and accessing the protected area within just a few months.
- High footfall does not always match the sanctuary’s ecological capacity, creating hidden pressure on habitats, wildlife, and infrastructure.
- Small, city-edge sanctuaries are high-value landscapes that require bespoke management frameworks to balance conservation with public use.
- The views in the commentary are that of the author. This commentary is based on the analysis of the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department data by the author. The findings are not independently verified by Mongabay-India.
Across India, protected areas are witnessing a steady rise in visitors. From sprawling national parks to small wildlife sanctuaries on the fringes of major cities, nature tourism is booming. This growth is often celebrated as a sign of increasing public interest in conservation. But beyond the headline of visitor numbers, a quieter and a more complex question remains largely unexamined: what happens to ecosystems when popularity turns into pressure?
Ralamandal Wildlife Sanctuary, located on the outskirts of Indore in Madhya Pradesh, offers a revealing case study. Spread across an area just over 2 square kilometres, Ralamandal is one of the smallest wildlife sanctuaries in the state. Yet its proximity to the rapidly expanding Indore city makes it one of the most heavily visited forest landscapes in the region.
The sanctuary’s history dates to the Holkar period, when the hill forest served as a royal hunting ground, or shikargah. Today, a hilltop structure built in 1905 serves as a museum, offering panoramic views of Indore, Bilawali Tank, and the surrounding mountain hills such as Devguradiya, Umrikheda, Datuni, Renuka and Rann Bhawar. This blend of nature and history attracts a diverse crowd — from fitness enthusiasts and students to weekend tourists.
However, forest department data has revealed that the average revenue generated per visitor has stagnated or declined. Visitor data from the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department shows that a large share of this footfall is concentrated between May and September. During these months, daily visitor numbers rise sharply, placing heavy pressure on a small forest area with limited capacity to absorb disturbance.
This pattern is not unique to Ralamandal. It is common across many protected areas in India, especially those located close to cities. It raises an important question: how can protected areas be managed to maintain a careful balance between conservation and public access?
Seasonal crowding challenge
From a management perspective, seasonal crowding poses greater ecological risk than steady, moderate visitation spread across the year. When hundreds of people enter a compact forest landscape over short periods, the cumulative impacts increase rapidly.
Trampling along trails leads to soil compaction and vegetation loss. Noise and crowding disturb nesting birds and small mammals. Litter accumulates faster than it can be managed. Wildlife gradually avoids frequently used areas, altering movement patterns and habitat use.
These impacts are subtle and incremental. They occur not because visitors are intentionally careless, but because the sheer density of people exceeds what the ecosystem can handle in a short window of time. These changes are slow and rarely show up in traditional metrics such as forest cover statistics. Often, the damage only becomes visible after an ecological threshold has already been crossed.
This reveals a gap in how visitor pressure is usually measured across protected areas in India. Annual totals treat all visits as equal, regardless of when they occur or how concentrated they are. For wildlife and habitats, however, timing and intensity matter far more than yearly averages.
Event-driven spikes
Ralamandal Wildlife Sanctuary is widely used for nature education, birdwatching, trekking, and for conducting awareness programmes. These activities help build conservation awareness and are important. However, when they are concentrated in already crowded months, they can increase pressure on the ecosystem.
Visitor data from the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department over five years shows a change in who is visiting. There are now more children, students, and organised groups, who visit. Such groups usually arrive together, follow the same routes, and stay in limited areas, increasing local impact. Events such as hill runs, yoga sessions, and awareness programmes also cause sudden spikes in footfall. These activities are positive, but they need careful timing.
Management efforts therefore need to focus on spreading visitor use more evenly across seasons rather than adding activities during already crowded periods.
Rethinking ecotourism with data
The key insight from Ralamandal sanctuary’s visitor data is the need to move beyond annual visitor limits and focus on seasonal and short-term carrying capacity. Instead of asking how many visitors a sanctuary can host in a year, managers may need to ask how many it can handle in a week or a month during peak periods. This shift does not require major infrastructure investment, but better use of existing data. When analysed carefully, visitor records can guide entry regulation, time-slot management, trail rotation, temporary closure of sensitive areas, and more strategic deployment of staff. Field staff often notice these patterns through years of on-ground experience.
At Ralamandal, combining such field observations with systematic visitor data helped turn experience-based insights into clear, measurable trends. This integration supports more flexible, timely, and responsive management decisions.
Also, in most sanctuaries, visitor numbers are recorded mainly for revenue and reporting purposes. These figures offer little insight into how visitors are distributed across space and time. For example, a small sanctuary like Ralamandal would face very different pressures if more than 1.5 lakh (150,000) visitors came steadily through the year, compared to the same number arriving within just a few months.
Ralamandal’s data shows that more than 70% of annual visits occur within just four to five months. Without daily and seasonal analysis, managers have limited ability to anticipate pressure points or respond proactively. Tourism management therefore remains administrative rather than ecological in approach.
Fixed rules, such as the same timings, ticket prices, and access throughout the year — do not match seasonal changes in ecological sensitivity. Ralamandal’s experience shows the need for ‘dynamic’ management that adapts to real-time crowd levels and ecological conditions.
From tourism promotion to regulation
Ecotourism helps build conservation awareness and generate income, but its regulatory role is just as important. It also needs clear rules. Without controls on timing, access, and movement, even responsible tourism can harm ecosystems. Protected areas may need measures such as seasonal visitor limits, time-slot entry, trail rotation, temporary closure of sensitive areas, and guidance to avoid crowding. These steps do not reduce access; they spread visitor pressure more evenly.
Carrying capacity is not only about how many people visit, but also when they visit, where they move, and how long they stay. The Ralamandal story suggests three major shifts in how India should approach protected areas. First, management should move from fixed to dynamic limits, using seasonal data to set flexible visitor caps. Second, there should be greater focus on data over infrastructure, investing in simple tools like footfall tracking and trail mapping rather than only building new facilities. Third, there is a need for tailored management for urban sanctuaries, recognising that small, city-edge sanctuaries are high-value landscapes that require bespoke management frameworks to balance conservation with public use.
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Managing visitors
Visitor management is often treated as an administrative task, but it is a core conservation concern. Ralamandal teaches us that conservation today is as much about managing people as it is about managing wildlife. Ralamandal does not argue against public access to nature. Instead, it shows why access needs to be carefully guided. Visitor use must be guided by ecological limits, not simply recorded as annual totals.
A key strength of the Ralamandal analysis is that it uses longitudinal data, collected over five years, rather than looking at a single year. Patterns that were not clear at first became visible over time. This helped management move from reacting to problems after they occur to planning using data. Even small actions, when based on clear evidence, can help reduce ecological stress.
Popularity brings responsibility. Access to nature is a right, but that access must be guided by ecological limits. When popularity grows without a plan, it turns into pressure. When it is guided by data and ecological understanding, it can be transformed into stewardship. As India continues to expand its conservation ambitions, the sustainability of our protected areas will depend on how well we understand and manage the human presence within them.
Often, the most useful lessons come not from the largest landscapes, but from smaller ones like Ralamandal — where pressure appears early and solutions can be tested in time. Small sanctuaries like Ralamandal are ideal for testing such approaches, as ecological changes are quickly visible and lessons can guide visitor management in larger protected areas.
The author is an Indian Forest Service officer working in Madhya Pradesh. The commentary is based on the analysis he conducted on the forest department data.
Banner image: An aerial view of Rajamandal, against the backdrop of neighbouring Indore city. Image by Ritesh Khabia.
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