This Duo Brought Wilderness Back To Chambal With An Ecolodge

Chambal Safari Lodge | The Chambal region in north-central India has a striking beauty that is marred by a legacy of dacoity and lawlessness that has kept people away from exploring its wonders for the longest time. Its river valleys, ravines and built heritage of forts and temples are home to a stunning array of flora and fauna, ranging from gharials and turtles to the Ganges river dolphin and the Indian skimmer.

Tourism is slowly improving people’s lives here, and one property in particular has paved the way for responsibly marrying hospitality and sustainability: the Chambal Safari Lodge. All 52 acres of it, more than half of which is reclaimed wild forest, is a case study in eco-tourism, from man-made ponds that recharge groundwater reservoirs to the plantation of endemic trees, shrubs and grasses that boast more than 200 species of birds, reptiles and mammals.

All of this is due to the efforts of two people: Ram Pratap Singh and Anu Dillon Singh. In 1999, they upped sticks and left their respective day jobs at the government of India and UNESCO to move to Mela Kothi, Ram Pratap Singh's ancestral home, in Chambal.

They shared a dream of starting a nature tourism enterprise focused on the pristine Chambal River. This tributary of the Yamuna River flows north-northeast through Madhya Pradesh before crossing briefly into Rajasthan and turning southeast to join the Yamuna again in Uttar Pradesh state.

Starting From Scratch At Chambal

There was no business plan, but with Anu’s environmental science background and Ram Pratap’s engineering one, they started work on restoring Mela Kothi, a process which took five years since the residence had lain abandoned for over two decades. They also built four cottages in the traditional style using local materials.

At the same time, Anu and Ram Pratap earmarked 30 acres of land for a rewilding project. From 1999-2006, they planted all kinds of endemic plants, including different varieties of acacia, banyans, Ficus religiosa trees and more. They noticed that nature took its course very quickly.

“Beyond 2005, no real management intervention was required in the rewilding process,” Ram Pratap Singh says. “At the lodge, we have more than 57 different varieties of trees and plants and hundreds of animal species such as jackals, hyenas, civets, jungle cats and other smaller individuals.

When we started in 1999, there used to be one nesting site for gharials in the Chambal River. These animals nest in colonies composed of four to five females which are then protected by the males. There used to be one such colony then. As per last year’s census, there are five in the same area, which is a great indication that the habitat is safe and tourism has not had any negative impact on the habitat; rather it possibly has had a positive impact.”

Chambal Safari Lodge: Pioneer Of Slow And Immersive Travel

Today, the Chambal Safari Lodge has won a slew of honours for its wildlife tourism offerings from TOFTigers, Tripadvisor and the Indian Responsible Tourism Awards (IRTA). They offer river safaris to spot gharials, seven types of turtles and Gangetic dolphins; birdwatching tours that include sightings of sarus cranes, Indian skimmers and wetland birds; blackbuck safaris; and cultural tours that include the 16^th-century Bateshwar temples, the Holipura Heritage Village and a colonial walking tour of Etawah.

“Typically, a visitor will stay with us for three to four nights and experience a mix of natural and cultural and heritage experiences,” Singh says. “To deliver these experiences, we have five in-house naturalists and guides who have been trained by us over the years.”

The lodge's 14 rooms and cottages are open to guests only from October 1 to April 30, after which the property closes for five months. In a regular season, the Chambal Safari Lodges receives around 1,250 people, of whom 70 per cent hail from the United Kingdom, parts of Europe, the United States of America, Australia and Canada.

Piqued by the discrepancy between international and domestic tourists, I ask Singh what he makes of it. He cites two reasons: the first is due to Chambal's image as a hotbed of banditry, a reputation that hasn’t faded away completely among Indians, and the fact that the property was heavily marketed overseas as a birdwatching oasis in its initial years. The second reason is that the property has very strict rules for visitors to follow.

“We do not give out our place for any kind of celebrations or parties and we don’t allow any music,” says Singh. “There is no television anywhere on the property, including in the private areas. So the place is made for a certain niche kind of traveller. We are happy that we are getting the right kind of people as the place has continued to be eco-friendly and responsible.”

Rising Tide That Lifts All Boats

Navigating the challenges that came with operating a hospitality business while conserving the land was no easy task. Singh says that his biggest obstacle when he first started out in 1999 was whether it was the beginning or the end of tourism. “Stories of overtourism and mass tourism were already commonplace in Corbett even then, and Ranthambore was beginning to slide down even 25 years ago,” he says.

“Fortunately for us, because of my academic and technical background, I have been part of the state wildlife board and various statutory bodies. So, we prepared a management plan for tourism for Chambal in 2006, which was way before the 2012 Supreme Court NTCA guidelines for tourism in protected areas. We did a carrying capacity study and put in place restrictions like the fact that no tourism zone out of the four available would have more than three boats at a given time. Furthermore, boats would be staggered when in operation.

We did it so that one, it did not lead to any change in animal behaviour; and two, it would not destroy the habitat it was meant to protect. I believe tourism has to be in a supporting role; tourism is not the reason why national parks and sanctuaries exist. Tourism is there to create livelihoods for people in and around those parts so that the detrimental impact of human habitation can be mitigated.”

Ram Pratap Singh is adamant that giving back to the local economy is a vital aspect of responsible tourism. “Nature can give back to you what you can’t even imagine. Eco-tourism is about low intensity, low impact and low numbers. You can’t have 10,000 people going to Chambal and expect it to remain pristine,” he says.

“In whichever domain you operate, the local economy should benefit from the tourism operation. If it doesn’t then it’s just an island of excellence. Amartya Sen said this in a different context, but lodges that are like ‘islands of excellence surrounded by seas of sub-Saharan Africa’ are no good because the economic benefit of high-end tourism is not percolating down to the locals around them.”

“In our case, I did an empirical study and calculated that about 67 per cent of my revenue goes back into the local ecosystem, which is a very, very healthy number. This is also what I encourage other lodges to calculate and to see that the money should not be going back to their owner in Bombay or to their general manager in Chennai, but that it should actually be going down to local farmers and committees.”

Weeding Out Greenwashing In Tourism & Hospitality

To this end, Singh used his engineering background to develop an algorithm to calculate a property’s carbon balance sheet. Working with the Indian School of Nature (ISN), of which he is a co-founder, he started work on a tool that could separate the wheat of sustainability credentials from the chaff of greenwashing. The Excel spreadsheet is a self-assessment document where businesses can input their emissions (from sources like fuel, coal, firewood, diesel generators and electricity) and their carbon sequestration data to arrive a carbon offset number.

“Because, in the tourism industry, everything is loaded onto the room night, you divide that offset by the number of room nights that you did in that season and it gives you the carbon sequestration per room night,” Singh says.

“When we did this for the Chambal Safari Lodge, we realised that we were sequestering something like 10 kilos of carbon dioxide per room night and about 45,000 litres of water was being conserved per room night.”

Emboldened by success, Singh and the ISN created a sustainability dashboard and showcased their algorithm to other wildlife landscapes in the country like Bandhavgarh National Park and Kanha National Park. Several lodges have now signed up to it.

“It is no rocket science; it’s so easy to tabulate and tell the world that yes, we are sustainable and this is our sustainability number which is in sync with the COP28 guidelines for the tourism industry. India has a great opportunity to go the sustainability way because most of us are doing a great job but we are not recording or reporting,” he says.

In a forthcoming event in April, Singh and the ISN are launching a carbon-neutral itinerary for the benefit of international tour operators. Those who want to offset their carbon dioxide emissions generated by a flight from London to India, for example, can choose to stay at properties like the Dera Amer in Jaipur, the Ramathra Fort of Rajasthan, the Chambal Safari Lodge and Kipling Camp, among others, to reduce or eliminate their carbon footprint.

An Eye On The Future

Putting Chambal on the global tourism map has given Singh a lot of satisfaction, not least that the region is now a birdwatching hotspot. But there is more yet to be done.

“I want to turn the ISN into a global knowledge platform not just for tourism but for all the factors that will impact planet sustainability. We are in the process of building a full-blown campus by 2027 that will exemplify what we will be preaching and are scouting for land with the support of the government,” he says.

“The Chambal Safari Lodge has 22 acres of farmland that includes an olive garden. Our agricultural venture, called Wild Chambal, plans to sell products like olive oil by next year. We are experimenting with several traditional crops and seeds.

Between Mela Kothi, Wild Chambal and the Indian School of Nature, we have our hands full, and we are physically and mentally challenged for years to come.”