Most of the remote areas such as mountains and islands are characterized by the features such as remoteness, fragility, endemism and upland –low land / island- mainland linkages, besides richer biodiversity/ indigenous knowledge, thus attracting a large number of quality conscious tourists. However, conventional “top-down”, reactive and ad-hock approaches and ill-conceived/unplanned “development” activities such as infrastructure for mass tourism will destroy the very natural /cultural resource base on which the tourism thrives in these areas. These trends have led to the paradigm shifts towards community based, participatory, pro-active management strategies. Appropriate strategies for integrating biodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihoods by regenerating nature and culture for facilitating sustainable development of remote ecosystems in the third world are discussed in this paper.

Keywords : Biodiversity, eco-cultural tourism, indigenous knowledge, remote areas, sustainable livelihoods.