Editorial | Kodagu’s Youth Need Sustainable Futures, Not Another Tourism Rush
- Kodagu Express Bureau
- Nov 14
- 2 min read
Kodagu Deputy Commissioner Venkat Raja’s recent remarks at an event organised by the Coorg Resort and Hotel Association reveal a deeply troubling vision for the district’s future. Suggesting that tourism-related projects will help bring Kodagu’s youth back home not only misreads the ground reality but also ignores the very crises that uncontrolled tourism has unleashed on this fragile hill district.
What exactly was Venkat Raja trying to convey? If the implication is that Kodagu needs more resorts, larger tourism infrastructure, and continued commercial expansion, the message is dangerously misplaced. Kodagu is already reeling under environmental strain, unregulated resorts encroaching on slopes, polluted streams due to poor waste management, shrinking forests, and a rising frequency of landslides. None of this is speculation. The Karnataka Western Ghats Conservation Taskforce has repeatedly warned that Kodagu is burdened with over-tourism, receiving nearly 1.3 million visitors annually, far beyond what its ecology can sustain.
At a time when experts are proposing an e-pass system to reduce tourist inflow, the district administration should be prioritising ecological restoration, not endorsing further expansion of the very industry causing the damage.
More importantly, Venkat Raja’s comments ignore Kodagu’s most fundamental truth: the backbone of the district is agriculture not tourism. Coffee, pepper, paddy, and plantation-based livelihoods have shaped Kodava society for generations. If Kodagu’s youth have migrated, it is not because they dream of working in resorts, but because agriculture has been neglected, unprotected, and unmodernised. The DC, who has served in Kodagu for over three years, should have recognised this by now.
Kodagu’s young people need support to revive their land, not encouragement to abandon it. They need investment in sustainable farming, value addition, farm-based entrepreneurship, climate resilient agriculture, and local processing industries. These are the sectors that keep Kodagu’s land, water, and forests intact, not more homestays, more hotels, and more traffic jams.
Tourism, if planned responsibly, can supplement income. But Kodagu cannot survive as a tourism-driven economy, nor can its fragile hills withstand more concrete. The DC’s role is to safeguard Kodagu’s ecology and ensure that development aligns with its carrying capacity, not push a narrative that risks further ecological collapse.
If the administration truly wants Kodagu’s youth to return, it must strengthen the roots of the district and not invite another wave of unsustainable tourism that weakens them.
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Hi,
Thanks so much for this article. It possibly applies to youth in various parts of the country.
Do you know of groups or individuals who are working with the youth in Kodagu ? Might be useful to publish another article in sequence to this one to speak of activities that are currently being undertaken in line with the spirit of this post