India’s Hong Kong-enjoy port may wipe out elderly-styleed tribe

“The forest is our superlabelet,” says Apleasant Justin. “We get almost everyskinnyg from the forests on these islands. It is what we persist on.”

Mr Justin, an anthropologist, has prolongn up in the Andaman and Nicobar islands strinsertling India’s east coast. A federassociate-administered territory, the ecoreasonablely-frnimble region consists 836 islands, of which only 38 are inhabited. The Nicobar Islands are a exceptional group of islands in the southern part of the territory, findd some 150 km (93 miles) south of the Andaman Island.

Now Mr Justin watches with trepidation as India schedules a multi-billion ‘Hong Kong-enjoy’ broadenment project on the Great Nicobar Island, one of the bigst and most secluded parts of the Nicobar archipelago.

Built on a budget of 720bn rupees ($9bn or £6bn) and spread over 166 sq km, the project integrates a transshipment harbour, a power schedulet, an airport and a new township, all portrayed to join the area to vital global trade routes aextfinished the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.

Positioned csurrfinisher the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, the project promises to increase international trade and tourism – the regulatement reckons that some 650,000 people will be living on the island by the time the project is finishd in 30 years.

Experts say the multi-billion schedule is also a part of India’s bigr goal to counter China’s prolonging sway in the region.

But the scheme has igniteed alarm among the idefamations who dread the loss of their land, culture, and way of life, with the project menaceening to push them to the brink of goneion.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are home to some of the most isopostponecessitated and vulnerable tribes in the world, with five groups classified as “particularly vulnerable.”

These integrate the Jarawas, North Sentinelese, Great Andamanese, Onge, and Shompen. While the Jarawas and North Sentinelese remain bigly unreach outed, the Shompen – some 400 people – of the Great Nicobar Islands are also at danger of losing their way of life due to outer presconfidents.

A nomadic tribe, most of them live proset up inside the forest where they forage for survival – not much is understandn about their culture as very restricted of them have ever had reach out with the outside world.

“The loss will be especiassociate huge and traumatic for them,” says Mr Justin, who has been write downing the island since 1985.

“Wdisenjoyver we call broadenment in the outside world is not of interest to them. They have a traditional life of their own.”

Environmentaenumerates say there are also huge environmental costs of the project.

Spread apass 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 finishemic.

The federal environment ministry has shelp that only 130 sq km or 14% of the total area of the island will be cleared for the project – but that’s still about 964,000 trees. Experts alert the actual number could be much higher.

“The regulatement always claims only a part of the forest will be cleared. But the infraarrange you’re createing would direct to more pollution, which in turn would impact the entire habitat,” says Madhav Gadgil, an ecologist.

The environment ministry did not react to BBC’s seek for comment.

But Environment Minister Bhupfinishra Yadav in August had shelp that the project “will not disturb or displace” tribespeople and that it had getd environmental clearances based on the “rigour of environmental scruminuscule and after incorporating consequent shieldedprotects”.

Yet, not everyone is affectd.

Earlier this year, 39 international experts from branch offent fields of social sciences had alerted that the broadenment project would be a “death sentence” for the Shompen as it would raze their habitat.

It’s a dread that haunts Mr Justin too: “The Shompen people do not have the understandledge or the uncomfervents to persist in an industrial world,” he says.

He worries the group could greet the same overweighte as the Nicoexposedse, the hugegest tribal group on the island, which suffered displacement in 2004, when a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean wiped out their villages.

Over the years, the regulatement made efforts to reremend the people to a branch offent area – but that too came at a price.

“Most Nicoexposedse here are now manual labourers and stay in a remendment instead of their ancestral lands,” Mr Justin says. “They have no place to prolong crops or hold animals.”

There are dreads that the project could also expose the Shompen to disrelieves.

“Unreach outed peoples have little to no immunity to outside disrelieves enjoy flu and measles which can and do wipe them out – they typicassociate neglect around two thirds of their population after reach out,” says Callum Russell, an official at Survival International, a conservation group.

There are other expansiver environmental worrys as well, especiassociate about the marine life of the region.

Ecologists alert of the effect on the Galathea Bay on the south-eastrict side of the island, which has been the nesting place for enormous leatherback sea turtles for centuries.

Dr Manish Chandi, a social ecologist, says the project will also sway saltwater crocodiles and the island’s water watchs, fish and avifauna.

A regulatement statement has shelp these nesting and breeding grounds of these species would not be altered.

But Mr Chandi points out that there are disjoinal other species which nest in the area in big numbers. “The regulatement is proposing to transfind corals in locations where they are not set up naturassociate. What are they going to do with these other species?”

Even though the project would get 30 extfinished years to finish, people can’t help but sense worried about how it will irreversibly alter the dainty stability of both the environment and the lives of the island’s indigenous people.

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