Great Nicobar Project: India’s Hong Kong-like port may wipe out ancient tribe

” The jungle is our supermarket”, says Anice Justin. ” The trees on these islands provide almost anything,” says the island community. It is what makes up our daily diet.

Mr Justin, an anthropologist, has grown up in the Andaman and Nicobar islands straddling India’s west coast. A federally-administered province, the ecologically-fragile place consists 836 territories, of which only 38 are inhabited. The Nicobar Islands are a distinct group of islands in the southern part of the territory, located some 150 km ( 93 miles ) south of the Andaman Island.

One of the largest and most remote regions of the Nicobar island, Mr. Justin is watching with apprehension as India plans a multi-billion” Hong Kong-like” development initiative on the Great Nicobar Island, one of the largest and most remote.

The project, which is spread over 166 square kilometers and is funded by 720 billion pounds ($ 9 billion or$ 6 billion ), consists of a shipping port, a power plant, an airport, and a new town. It is intended to connect the region to important international trade routes along the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.

The project, which is situated close to the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest transport roads in the world, hopes to increase global trade and commerce. According to the government, the island does have 650, 000 residents by the project’s completion in 30 years.

Authorities say the multi-billion program is also a part of India’s larger objective to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

The locals who fear the loss of their property, society, and way of life are alarmed by the system, which threatens to bring them to the brink of extinction.

Five parties in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are categorized as “particularly resilient,” making them some of the most remote and perilous nations in the world.

These include the Jarawas, North Sentinelese, Great Andamanese, Onge, and Shompen. The Shompen, or roughly 400 people, of the Great Nicobar Islands are also at risk of losing their way of life as a result of outside forces, despite the Jarawas and North Sentinelese remaining mostly uninhabited.

A wandering tribe, the majority of whom reside heavy within forests where they forage for food, is where little is known about their culture because very few people have actually interacted with outside world.

” The damage will be especially big and traumatizing for them,” says Mr. Justin, who has been keeping tabs on the area since 1985.

They do not find what we call creation in the outside world to be interesting. They live a conventional career of their own.

According to environmentalists, the job even has high environmental costs.

Spread across 921 sq km ( 355.6 sq miles ), around 80 % of the Great Nicobar island is covered with rainforests, which are home to more than 1, 800 animals and 800 flora species, many of which are endemic.

Only 130 sq km, or 14 % of the island’s total area, will be cleared for the project, according to the federal environment ministry, or 964, 000 trees total. The exact figure, according to experts, could be much higher.

The state consistently asserts that only a portion of the forest may be cleared. But the system you’re building may result to more pollution, which in turn may impact the overall habitat”, says Madhav Gadgil, an environmentalist.

The culture government did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

However, in August, Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav claimed that the project had been granted economic certifications based on the “rigour of climate scrutiny and subsequent safeguards” and that it” will not upset or displace” tribespeople.

Still, not everyone is convinced.

Earlier this year, 39 international experts from different fields of social sciences had warned that the development project would be a “death sentence” for the Shompen as it would destroy their habitat.

It’s a worry that also presides over Mr. Justin:” The Shompen citizens do not have the expertise or the means to survive in an industrial earth,” he claims.

He worries that the island’s largest ethnic group, the Nicobarese, will suffer the same fate as the island’s residents who were forced to flee in 2004 when their villages were destroyed by a large tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

The authorities made work over the years to relocate the population to a different location, but they also cost.

According to Mr. Justin, the majority of Nicobarians live in a negotiation rather than their ancestral homelands. They are unable to raise vegetables or care for animals.

The initiative is thought to have the potential to spread diseases to the Shompen.

According to Callum Russell, an official at Survival International, a conservation organization,” Tribal individuals usually lose around two thirds of their community after contact because they have little to no immunity to outside conditions like the flu and influenza.”

There are also other more pressing economic issues, particularly those relating to the aquatic life in the area.

The Galathea Bay on the island’s south-eastern area, which has been a site for huge leatherback sea turtles ‘ nests for thousands of years, is in danger of being destroyed, according to environmentalists.

Dr Manish Chandi, a cultural ecology, says the job will also affect salt crocodiles and the island’s waters panels, fish and avifauna.

These breeding and nesting locations for these types won’t be altered, according to a federal speech.

However, Mr. Chandi makes note of the numerous different types that make significant nesting trips to the region. ” The state is proposing to relocate reefs to places that are not found naturally. What will these different species do with?”

People can’t help but feel concerned about how it will permanently alter the island’s indigenous people’s delicate balance, despite the 30-year commitment to completion.

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