As India moves forward with plans to transform the Great Nicobar Island (GNI) in the Indian Sea into a sprawling development project, concerns remain over what that might mean for the island’s historically isolated indigenous residents, as well as the rich biosphere housed within its dense rainforests.
The plan is for the 720 billion rupee ($9 billion) project to cover 166 square kilometers of the largest island in the Nicobar archipelago, establishing a transshipment harbor, power plant, airport and township, and acting as a critical trade hub to help India compete with China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia. And although India’s Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav claimed in August that the project would not disturb or displace the GNI’s current residents, some experts believe that it would be a “death sentence tantamount to genocide” for the island’s nomadic Shompen tribe.
“Simple contact between the Shompen — who have little to no immunity to infectious outside diseases — and those who come from elsewhere, is certain to result in a precipitous population collapse,” warned a coalition of nearly 40 genocide scholars with nonprofit Survival International, in a February letter to Indian President Droupadi Murmu.
The 400 or so members of the Shompen reside in the forests of the island, primarily living as hunter-gatherers and rarely interacting with the modern world. The GNI project would look grow the island’s population from 8,000 people to 650,000 over the next 30 years — not only would that expose the Shompen to new diseases such as the flu and measles, says Survival International, but it could also threaten the tribe’s natural habitats and destroy crucial food sources.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Great Nicobar Island houses more than 650 species of plants, as well as 1,800 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, several of which are either endangered or endemic to the island. The future site of the GNI project is also one of the primary nesting sites for the leatherback turtle and Nicobar megapode, both of which are endangered.
