Jaisalmer: Kicking off “eco-tourism” in Desert National Park (DNP), the forest department has started a camel and camel cart safari in the protected wildlife sanctuary with two designated routes of 5km and 10km.Divisional forest officer (DFO) for the national park, B M Gupta, said the forest department’s additional chief secretary Anand Kumar and PCCF P K Upadhyay recently visited Jaisalmer and directed that camel and camel cart safaris be started for tourists to promote eco-tourism in DNP. He said a proposal for this was sent to the higher office and was cleared on a pilot project basis for Sudasari area within the DNP sanctuary. He said the safaris were launched on Jan 26.The DFO said efforts would be made to provide all facilities under “eco-tourism”, such as binoculars to tourists, watchtowers for photography from a height, and eco huts to allow tourists to stay in the sanctuary at night. He said arrangements were being made to ensure that tourists can see and photograph the state bird, Godawan (Great Indian Bustard), and publicity for the eco-tourism initiative was being carried out. Chinkara, Desert Fox, and other rare desert animal species can be spotted during the safaris, the DFO added.
