A Frontline News Item & Protective Project ….
Great Nicobar and its companion islands are home to pristine forests that return to the beginning of time. They house flora and fauna that are rare and endemic. The islands are home to indigenous tribes who were there long before “civilisation” as we define it was born. These are important factors. They must weigh with any government before it launches a plan that threatens to wipe out life on the island as we knew it.
The upcoming megaproject on Great Nicobar Island fails all three tests of sustainability—social, economic, and ecological. Socially, it will oust indigenous people from their homeland and possibly destroy them. Economically, the viability of the transshipment port is suspect. And ecologically, it is obvious that the project bodes an environmental catastrophe for the island.
To discuss the project, its implications, and more, Frontline’s Divya Gandhi speaks to researcher, author, and journalist Pankaj Sekhsaria and independent journalist and author M. Rajshekhar.
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The islands were in the direct path of the TSUNAMI of 26 December 2004. If ‘whispering tales’ are to be relied upon, the indigenous natives had the sense to rush into the highlands that feature on their islands. In this ‘aboriginal’ animal sensibility they replicated the animal instincts that saw all the animals in the vicinity of the seashore at the Yala Wild Life Park in Sri Lanka move to the interior. Rumours allege that no dead animal carcasses were found. In contrast several local and foreign toruists were swamped to death…. Michael Roberts
