case study on deforestation in andaman and nicobar islands

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Mongabay Series: India's Iconic Landscapes

Andaman forests need longer intervals between repeat logging for recovery: study

In the Andaman archipelago where selective logging is practised by the forest department, an interval of 10-25 years between logging events is not sufficient for the forests, especially deciduous forests, to recover from the first logging cycle, a study has said.
The study finds that evergreen forests are quite resilient to logging compared to deciduous forests; deciduous patches, when logged twice, had less than half the carbon of intact deciduous forest.
The evidence of logging-induced deciduousness in the forests of Andamans, even with the current selective-felling practice, is a ‘matter of concern’ for the forest structure of the fragile islands.

To the untrained eye discerning between evergreen and deciduous tree mosaics of the Andaman archipelago can be tough in the wet season but the patches clearly stand out in the dry season in the volcanic ridge-arc islands. In the dry season between January and April, deciduous forests lose leaves and it is easy to distinguish the leafless patches from the evergreen areas that are dark green.

Forests on these islands − that share a majority of their flora and fauna with South-West Myanmar and Western Thailand − have a long history of human use going back to 20,000 years. Most of the forests have had a tryst with logging-associated disturbances starting in the 1800s with British rule in India. At present, selective logging in the Andaman Islands is practised only by the forest department.

Unlike clearing of forest, selective logging involves removing a few important timber trees such that diversity is retained and carbon recovers quickly, explained Akshay Surendra who set out to study the sustainability of the logging exercise, by sampling tree communities that were subjected to different logging treatments across deciduous and evergreen forests.

Akshay’s goal was to understand if and how often one can go back to these forests to log for a second or third time, while still maintaining the integrity of the forest. The current working plan, set up in 2005, is planned at a 30-year cutting cycle: the same patch of forest is logged once every 30 years. The current plan focuses explicitly on diversity and caps logging intensity at up to three trees per hectare.

The authors say that regardless of the nature of logging, an interval of 10–25 years between logging events is not sufficient for forests in the Andaman Islands, especially deciduous forests, to recover from the first logging cycle. Deciduous forests may potentially require more strict extraction limits compared to evergreen counterparts, they note in a study published this year.

“We found that evergreen forests are quite resilient to logging compared to deciduous forests: deciduous patches, when logged twice, had less than half the carbon of intact deciduous forest. But this doesn’t mean go ahead and log evergreen patches more! All it means that the current logging is tentatively okay,” said the study’s corresponding author Akshay. He conducted the study while doing his Master’s in Wildlife Biology and Conservation Program, National Centre for Biological Science, Bengaluru, India. He is currently a doctoral student based at the School of the Environment, Yale University, USA.

The study was conducted in the Andaman Islands, India (A, B). The scientists placed plots in the central archipelago, on near-contiguous islands in Middle Andaman and Baratang forest division (C: map prepared using National Remote Sensing Centre's (NRSC) Bhuvan Land-use land-cover data, 2015).Each plot (D) consisted of two nested plots that began at a logging stump and was aligned in the direction of treefall. Within each sub-plot, stems above plot-specific girth cut-offs were identified and measured. Photo from Surendra et. al.

Andaman and Nicobar Islands comprise 572 islands with a total geographical area of about 8,249 square kilometres, 0.25 percent of the total geographical area of India. Of the 8,249 sq. km, over 80 percent of the land (6,742.78 sq. km.) is recorded as forest land, which includes nine national parks, 96 wildlife sanctuaries and one biosphere reserve. The India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2019 states that the forestry practices in these islands have “undergone significant changes in the last more than 125 years of scientific forestry, influenced by major policy changes and socioeconomic situations. The current focus of forest management in the islands is towards biodiversity conservation along with sustainable use of forest produce for local inhabitants, to protect the environment for future generations.”

Compared to the ISFR 2017, the forest cover in the region has increased by 0.78 sq. km. while the mangrove cover has decreased by one square kilometre. Experts have reiterated concerns over an increase in the anthropogenic activities in the region and their impact.

Akshay and colleagues at NCBS examined responses of canopy cover, stem density, tree diversity, deciduous fraction and above-ground carbon, to logging frequency (baseline, once-logged and twice-logged) and asked how these responses differed across evergreen and deciduous patches. The Andaman forests are either dipterocarps-dominated evergreen types or are deciduous in nature, dominated by one species, the commercially important Andaman padauk ( Pterocarpus dalbergioides ).

For the study, worked forests were grouped into three categories – recent once-logged forests that were logged between 2007 and 2014, recent twice-logged forests that were harvested between 2007 and 2014 but also in the early 1990s; and baseline forests, forests that have not been cut since at least the early 1990s – most of these patches have no record of logging since 1960.

The study was conducted between December 2017 and May 2018 in Baratang and Middle Andaman Forest Divisions of central Andaman Islands. Researchers used GPS-based maps from post-2005 Working Plans and hand-drawn maps from pre-2005 Working Plans created by the Department of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Andaman and Nicobar Administration to delineate logging treatment.

The research reveals that under the selective logging regimes followed in the Andaman Islands, once-logged forests were largely comparable to baseline forests in both evergreen and deciduous forest types. However, twice-logged evergreen forests had 22-24 percent lower adult tree density and diversity compared to the baseline evergreen forests and twice-logged deciduous forests had 17-50 percent lower canopy cover, pole density, adult species diversity and above-ground carbon stocks.

Concerns over logging-induced deciduousness

The researchers consistently detected a small but significant increase in the representation of deciduous species in the adult tree community of all logged forests, except twice-logged evergreen forests; M. Rajkumar, a scientist at the Tropical Forest Research Institute (TFRI) in Jabalpur, who was not involved in the study, described this logging-induced deciduousness as a “matter of concern.”

“Although the interval between logging events considered in this study is short − 10 to 25 years − it gives sufficient indication and evidence that the logging-induced deciduousness in the forests of Andamans, even with the current selective-felling practice, is a matter of concern. It is a matter of concern because the increase in representation of deciduous species in the adult tree communities of both deciduous and evergreen forests under any logging condition will lead to further degradation and change in structure and function of this fragile island ecosystem,” Rajkumar told Mongabay-India.

Sampling in a deciduous patch with Jagadish Mondol and Aadhir Sammader. Photo by Akshay Surendra.

“The study opens new avenues for addressing species-specific research questions on soil-related water stress, especially in evergreen species. This is important because the evergreen mixed Dipterocarp forests support a substantial portion of the island’s biodiversity and ecosystem services,” Rajkumar adds.

The authors recommend reducing logging frequency and tailoring limits by forest type to improve recovery. Akshay draws attention to maintaining low logging intensities (less than three trees/ha) and incorporating improved logging practices like reduced-impact logging (RIL) to counter the detrimental effects of selective logging on the Andaman forests. RIL is a way to maintain timber production while minimising forest damage.

“Although it (RIL) has a number of best practices, the common sense part of it is straightforward: just remove fewer trees, give large gaps in time between logging events, reduce the damage when you remove those trees and try to bring back sensitive but functionally important species through active planting or restoration,” he explained. All these measures are being practised by the forest department in the Andamans, except the time-gap, but that’s because of a change in policy, he points out.

A new selective logging plan was put into practice in 2005, prompted by citizen activists who successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of India demanding a change in logging policies. There has been an official ban on any future logging in previously unlogged areas, while restricted low-intensity logging is practised in previously logged areas.

“In 2005, there was a clean-slate and redrawing of logging areas (called coupes). That was done irrespective of the logging history, so while some patches were being logged for the first time since independence, others were being logged in areas that were already logged before the new policy. This is a lose-lose scenario – timber yield is low and forest recovery is arrested. This problem will stop in the second cycle, but it’s best to correct it now,” Akshay notes, adding that it needs very small interventions by the forest department.

“The time gap between logging events can be extended by logging later in time, ensuring that “coupes” that were logged just before the new working plan are logged later in the current plan, so they get more time to recover,” added Akshay.

TFRI’s Rajkumar says findings of this study, particularly that (a) logging intensities and interval cause varying impacts among forest types, and (b) detrimental effect of selective felling could be further reduced by practising ‘reduced-impact logging’ need to be suitably incorporated in the Forest Working Plans of Andamans Islands. “Given the fact that there is hardly any spatial distinction in the occurrence of deciduous and evergreen patches in the Andaman Islands, this is going to be challenging,” he notes.

Illustrating with Karnataka as an example, T.V. Ramachandra, at Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, however, said, non-logging in the natural forests is the best option than selective logging. “Selective logging is being practised by the forest department in Karnataka (Western Ghats region), which has led to the removal of natural vegetation, replacing the same with the monoculture timber species (teak etc. in Uttara Kannada) which has escalated human-animal conflicts as animals were deprived of fodder and water. Hence no logging in natural forests is the prudent management option than selective logging,” Ramachandra, who was not associated with the study, told Mongabay-India.

Banner image: Evergreen, deciduous forest patches and mangroves in the Andamans. Photo by Akshay Surendra.

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DOI: 10.1300/J091v19n01_14
Corpus ID: 83414138

Illegal Logging and Deforestation in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

Pankaj Sekhsaria
Published 8 November 2004
Environmental Science, Law
Journal of Sustainable Forestry

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Deforestation in Andaman and Nicobar

2001, Economic and Political Weekly

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Cite this article

case study on deforestation in andaman and nicobar islands

R. Sridhar 1 ,
V. Sachithanandam 1 ,
T. Mageswaran 1 ,
Manik Mahapatra 1 ,
K. O. Badarees 1 ,
R. Purvaja 1 &
R. Ramesh 1

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The Andaman and Nicobar Islands of the Indian waters are endowed with rich natural resources which support the inhabitants of the islands for their economic, environmental and cultural well-being. It is important that the islands are conserved and protected for its unique environment and also managed sustainably for the livelihood security of the island communities. A major challenge in the protection of these small islands is lack of a holistic management plan by the local administration that integrates the special environmental concerns of islands. To address these lacunae, an attempt was made to prepare a small island management plan of Smith Island of North Andaman as a case study. The island management plan was prepared through analyzing the current status of land use and land cover features, ecologically sensitive areas, possible development and hazard perception of the island. The areas for development and no development, areas for preservation and conservation and suggestions for ecotourism development are indicated in the plan. The plan also provides information on the wildlife species and its impact on resources. The study also discusses mitigation measures in the climate change scenario.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India, and the World Bank, through the Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Project, for financial support and the UT of A&N (Department of Environment and Forests) for providing necessary permission for field survey in the island. The study is part of a project on preparation of Integrated Island Management for Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Views expressed are of authors only and not necessarily of the affiliated organizations including UT of ANI, and the research findings provided in this paper are for non-commercial research and educational use.

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Sridhar, R., Sachithanandam, V., Mageswaran, T. et al. Small island management: a case study of the Smith Island, North Andaman, India. Environ Dev Sustain 22 , 8211–8228 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-019-00553-8

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Received : 01 February 2018

Accepted : 06 December 2019

Published : 11 December 2019

Issue Date : December 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-019-00553-8

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How the loss of a tropical forest in Nicobar could end up funding a jungle safari in Haryana

Both the legality and the ecological impact of the move are being questioned by environmentalists.

Weeks before India’s environment ministry gave permission for 130 sq km of tropical forests to be cleared to make way for development projects on the Great Nicobar Island in the Indian Ocean, the chief minister of Haryana, a landlocked state 2,400 km away, was already announcing plans for how the money raised from the deforestation would be used.

Speaking to reporters on October 6, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the funds would be used to build “the world’s largest curated safari”. Ten thousand acres of land, not too far from the national capital, had already been identified for the project, he said: “6,000 acres from Gurguram district and 4,000 from Nuh.”

The safari would feature ten zones, one each for reptiles, birds, underwater species, exotic animals, a nature trail, and a botanical garden. Along with tigers, lions and panthers, it would also house cheetahs, the chief minister said, adding that efforts were underway to source the world’s fastest animals.

The press conference was held weeks after the Prime Minister had released cheetahs from Namibia in a national park in Madhya Pradesh, and days after Khattar had returned from a trip to the Sharjah Safari Park in the United Arab Emirates with India’s environment minister Bhupender Yadav. Khattar, in fact, first announced the state’s plans to build a jungle safari the day he visited Sharjah.

आज दुबई के शारजाह जंगल सफारी का दौरा किया, इसी की तर्ज पर हम गुरुग्राम व नूंह के 10 हजार एकड़ में विश्व का सबसे बड़ा सफारी पार्क स्थापित करने जा रहे हैं। पार्क से लोगों को रोजगार, अरावली पर्वत श्रृंखला का सरंक्षण व नजदीकी गांवों को होम स्टे पॉलिसी का लाभ मिलेगा। pic.twitter.com/4oNHUu4snm — Manohar Lal (@mlkhattar) September 29, 2022

In the press conference, Khattar said the plans for the jungle safari had been drawn up in consultation with Yadav. The Centre, he claimed, had asked Haryana if it would be willing to “develop a forest area” to compensate for the loss of forests in Nicobar. It is through the funds that Haryana will receive from “CAMPA” – the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority – that “this large-scale safari will be made operational,” Khattar said.

A contentious proposal

India’s forest conservation law mandates that whenever forests are cleared for developmental or industrial projects, trees must be planted over an equal area of non-forest land to compensate for the ecological loss. The agency responsible for the deforestation must transfer funds to a government authority, which in turn redirects them to the agency planting the trees. This process is called “compensatory afforestation”, even though environmentalists point out that plantations can never compensate for the loss of natural forests.

The proposal to create a jungle safari in Haryana using compensatory afforestation funds raised in Nicobar is being seen as especially contentious.

To start with, the two territories lie 2,400 km apart, in completely different climatic zones. Although there is no legal bar on compensatory afforestation funds raised in one state being used in another, experts point out that the geographic isolation of the Nicobar Islands has endowed them with a unique biodiversity – of about 2,200 varieties of plants recorded in the Islands, 200 are rare native species, and 1,300 do not occur in mainland India.

“This proposal for compensatory afforestation in Haryana in lieu of this ecological and social loss in the Islands is devoid of any logic,” said Tushar Dash, a forest rights researcher.

Further, government agencies are legally bound to seek approval from the environment ministry for both tree-felling and compensatory afforestation plans.

At the time when Khattar made the announcement of the jungle safari, the Nicobar deforestation itself was awaiting approval. While the approval was granted twenty days later, on October 27, Haryana is yet to submit a detailed project report for the jungle safari, a state official confirmed.

More significantly, the Rules specifically prohibit the creation of jungle safaris using one of the two components of the compensatory afforestation funds. While one component of the funds is meant to compensate for the loss of trees, the other component, called the net present value or NPV receipts, is supposed to compensate for the loss of other environmental services rendered by the forest, like groundwater recharge and biodiversity.

The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Rules, 2018 , provide a clear list of activities to which NPV funds can be allocated, and what they cannot be used for. “Establishment, expansion and up-gradation of zoo and wildlife safari” features in the latter list.

An ambiguous response

When asked about the legality of using Net Present Value funds for a jungle safari, Vivek Saxena, the chief executive officer of Haryana’s Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority, said: “If Rules do not allow this transfer of funds for the safari, then we will not do it.”

He evaded response to a question about whether, in the absence of NPV funds, the remaining compensatory afforestation funds would be adequate for the safari.

“Currently, the jungle safari is in the planning stages,” Saxena said. “Only after the detailed project report is prepared and the site-specific plans are approved will we go ahead.”

Monetising ecology

While Haryana officials remain guarded about the specifics of the jungle safari project, environmentalists say it is an example of how India’s compensatory afforestation policies are far removed from serving ecological needs and are instead enabling states to harness forests for financial gains.

“The recent use of compensatory afforestation in Haryana for the Nicobar project does two things,” said Kanchi Kohli, senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Research. “It justifies the loss of biodiverse landscapes like the Nicobars, and also accommodates the aspirations of states like Haryana to convert land into plantations or recreational tourism such as safari parks.”

Kohli said both the deforestation in Nicobar and the recreational tourism in Haryana were attempts to monetise forests, “instead of compensating for ecological loss”.

Environmental researchers also question the viability of creating large-scale plantation projects in the Aravalli hills of Haryana, a region with dry soil and shorter rain spells. Manju Menon, a senior fellow with CPR, said, that a well planned soil and water conservation programme, with adequate deployment of staff and resources, would be required to make compensatory afforestation in the Aravallis work. “The question is whether such resources can be made available over the long term and if this land use is the most appropriate given all other competing demands,” she said.

Haryana has a poor track record of compensatory afforestation. According to the State of Forest reports, Haryana’s total forest cover had remained steady over the past decade and half. It was 1,604 sq km in 2005, and 1,603 sq km in 2021.

This even came up in a meeting of the state’s compensatory afforestation authority in April 2022. The state’s additional chief secretary for science and technology, Ashok Khemka remarked that “despite large scale forest plantations in Haryana, the forest cover over the last two decades is flat…with no increase.”

Khemka recommended that the state forest department “review its modus operandi before infusing large scale funds in business-as-usual planting.”

Government data shows only six or seven out of ten saplings planted along Haryana’s roads for compensatory afforestation projects survive. This survival rate is one of the worst in the country, according to data provided by the environment ministry in Rajya Sabha in March 2021.

The survival rate of saplings in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands isn’t much better. But the union territory is one of the greenest parts of India, and more importantly, features biodiversity not found on the mainland.

While granting approval for the clearing of 130.75 sq km of forest land in Great Nicobar – about a third of the island’s area – the Union environment ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee said it was needed for “sustainable development”. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration aims to build Rs 75,000-crore worth projects – an International Container Transhipment Terminal, an airport, a power plant, and a new township – on the cleared land.

Manish Chandi, a research scholar who specialises on the interface of communities and natural environment in Nicobar Islands, said development is needed on the island. “Currently, the educational and medical facilities are dismal, and employment opportunities are few,” he said.

But he questioned the economic and ecological viability of the projects planned by the administration and pointed out that the island’s indigenous communities had not been consulted. “This Mega Development Project is not the kind of development needed,” he said.

Great Nicobar Island
Haryana jungle safari
Compensatory Afforestation

Introduction

The Islands and the Anthropologist

Tsunami and First Response
Second Tsunami
In Search of Axes
Steering a Sustainable Course
Steering Committee
Exchange Visit
Nirnay Means Decision
Up and Running
Caritas Leans In
Singh Sounds a Warning
Midcourse Correction
The SOPHIA Experiment
Taking Stock
SOPHIA Reports
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The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago lay 1,300 kilometers (about 800 miles) east of India between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. It comprised more than 500 tropical islands and rocky uplifts, all claimed by India. Of these, 24 islands made up the Nicobars, and of these 12 were inhabited. About a third of the islands’ population were Indian traders, immigrant laborers, and workers at the islands’ several military installations. The rest were an indigenous people called Nicobarese, who numbered about 27,000 before the tsunami. [1]

The Nicobarese were one of six “scheduled tribes” in the islands specifically protected under India’s 1956 Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation Act because of the vulnerability of their traditional culture. Under the terms of the act, access to the Nicobar Islands was strictly limited and all dealings with the tribes—whether for trade, social services, aid, or scientific purposes—were mediated by the Indian government, which had its administrative offices in the territorial capital of Port Blair, on South Andaman Island.

The Nicobarese were not Stone Age people. They had had contact with passing ships for 1,300 years and sporadic engagement with a succession of colonial administrations. Before the tsunami, they were aware of the outside world and had become partially assimilated. They had some electricity. Their children went to government primary schools. Some wore eyeglasses and rode bicycles. Most called themselves Christians, a handful Muslims. But these were modern accretions thinly layered over an ancient island culture with roots in the Malay-Burmese cultural complex. [2]

Traditional Nicobarese culture was inextricably tied to the island ecosystem. The Nicobarese fished, grew coconuts, and raised pigs and chickens. They planted small gardens of bananas and yams. They lived in coastal villages and built their canoes and thatched houses from materials found along the coast and in the interior rainforest. When cash was needed, to buy rice or kerosene for example, the Nicobarese sold dried coconut, called copra, to the immigrant traders.

Traditional Nicobarese life, narrated by Simron Singh. © Aftermath-The Second Flood, Golden Girls Filmproduktion, 2014

It was estimated that in the traditional economy, the Nicobarese worked about an hour a day in productive activity. [3] They put their energy into social relations, artwork, festivals, contests, and ritual expressions that honored their ancestors and the islands’ spirits. Outside the Nicobars, the people were perhaps best known for their hentakoi and kareau , painted effigies of people, animals, and spirits that guarded their homes and their ancestors’ bones. The Nicobarese lived in what was widely said to be a tropical paradise. As late as 1998, a visiting scholar was able to say: “As yet there are no signs of any serious conflict within their society between ordinary people and ‘modernists.’” [4]

Ceremonial life in the Nicobars, narrated by Simron Singh. © Aftermath-The Second Flood, Golden Girls Filmproduktion, 2014

Emotional scientist. In 1999, the Nicobars attracted the interest of a young Indian social scientist, Simron Singh. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English literature at the University of Delhi, Singh turned to anthropology. A self-described “misfit” and “black sheep” of a Sikh manufacturing family, Singh had a romantic disposition and sympathy for marginalized peoples.

In 1995, these inclinations took Singh to Dehradun, India, in the Himalayas, where he became involved with the Gandhi social justice movement and worked for an NGO that supported the rights of a group of forest nomads who herded water buffalos. The association ended badly. As the nomads’ cause became wildly popular in India, Singh believed that the NGO grew corrupt. Outraged and disheartened, Singh headed for the most unspoiled place he could find: the Nicobars, where he conducted research under a grant from India’s Ministry of Human ResearchDevelopment, Department of Culture. The job came with permission to live in the restricted islands.

Singh spent five years in the Nicobars doing field research for his doctorate, which was awarded by the University of Lund (Sweden) in 2003. During that time, he joined the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna as a research associate. His work with isolated hunters and gatherers was valuable to the institute and its director, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, who studied interactions between societies and their environments, especially in times of environmental stress and social change. [5]

Though still a young scientist, Singh was respected for his empirical work and empathetic engagement with his research subjects. He forged close personal relationships with many of the Nicobars’ most influential leaders, including elders like Jonathan, a traditionalist chief, and younger leaders like Prince Rasheed Yusuf, a member of the highest-ranking clan, who had been educated in India and had modernist dreams for his people. Singh even arranged for Rasheed to visit Vienna in 2003. Singh also worked closely with the Nicobarese Tribal Council and its operational wing, the Nicobarese Youth Association, and understood island administration well.

Singh cared deeply about the future of the islands and its peoples. According to Denis Giles, the editor of a newspaper in Port Blair who sometimes served as his research assistant, Singh was a complicated figure: a populist, a dreamer, a moralist, a scrupulous chronicler, a fiercely loyal friend -- “an emotional scientist.” [6]

[1] Venkat Ramanujam Ramani, “Gifts Without Dignity? Gift-Giving, Reciprocity and the Tsunami Response in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India,“ dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Environment, Society and Development, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, 2010, p.3., citing 2001 Indian census figure of 26,565.

[2] The definitive sources for pre-tsunami Nicobarese culture are Simron Jit Singh, In the Sea of Influence: A World System Perspective of the Nicobar Islands, Lund Studies in Human Ecology 6 (Lund: Lund University), 2003 and Simron Jit Singh, The Nicobar Islands: Cultural Choices in the Aftermath of the Tsunami (Vienna: Oliver Lehmann and Czernin Verlag), 2006.

[3] Lisa Ringhofer, Simron Jit Singh, and Marina Fischer-Kowalski, “Beyond Boserup: The Role of Human Time in Agricultural Development,” in Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Anette Reenberg, Anke Schaffartzik, and Andreas Mayer, eds., Ester Boserup’s Legacy on Sustainability: Orientations for Contemporary Research , Human-Environment Interactions Series, Vol. 4(Berlin: Springer), 2014.

[4] T. N. Pandit, “Ecology, Culture, History and World-View: The Andaman and Nicobar Islanders,” in The Cultural Dimension of Ecology, The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts: New Delhi, 1998. See: http://ignca.nic.in/cd_07016.htm

[5] Kirsten Lundberg interview with Simron Jit Singh on December 5, 2013, in Waterloo, Ontario. All quoted material for Singh, unless otherwise attributed, is from that interview.

[6] Raphael Barth, director, Aftermath—The Second Flood , Golden Girls Filmproduktion, 2014.

Video - http://www.aftermath-thesecondflood.net/

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Great Nicobar Island Project

10 Apr 2023
GS Paper - 3
Environmental Pollution & Degradation
Government Policies & Interventions

For Prelims: National Green Tribunal (NGT), Great Nicobar Island, Coastal Regulation Zones, Turtles, Dolphins, Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), Mangroves, Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve.

For Mains: Significance and Issues Related to Great Nicobar Island Project.

Why in News?

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a stay on the Great Nicobar Island project worth ₹72,000 crore and created a committee to review the environmental clearance granted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

What is the Great Nicobar Island Project?

The Great Nicobar Island (GNI) Project is a mega project to be implemented at the southern end of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The project includes an international container transshipment terminal , a greenfield international airport, township development, and a 450 MVA gas and solar based power plant over an extent of 16,610 hectares in the island.
It is equidistant from Colombo to the southwest and Port Klang (Malaysia) and Singapore to the southeast, and positioned close to the East-West international shipping corridor, through which a very large part of the world’s shipping trade passes.
The proposal to develop Great Nicobar was first floated in the 1970s , and its importance for national security and consolidation of the Indian Ocean Region has been repeatedly underlined.
Increasing Chinese assertion in the Indian Ocean has added great urgency to this imperative in recent years.
The project area is part of Coastal Regulation Zones - IA and IB , and the Galathea bay which is a nesting ground for birds.
Also, turtle nesting sites, dolphins and other species will be harmed by dredging.
Environmentalists have also flagged the loss of tree cover and mangroves on the island as a result of the development project.
The loss of tree cover will not only affect the flora and fauna on the island , it will also lead to increased runoff and sediment deposits in the ocean, impacting the coral reefs in the area.
Critics claimed that only one season data has been taken , as opposed to the requirement of taking data for three seasons for comprehensive impact assessment, environmental impact assessment reports were not conducted as per Terms of Reference (ToR).
Critics argue that while Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) are accorded the highest level of protection by local administration, they still face numerous challenges due to encroachment into their areas in the name of development.

Great Nicobar

It covers 1,03,870 hectares of unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems.
In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area.
The Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve harbours a wide spectrum of ecosystems comprising tropical wet evergreen forests, mountain ranges reaching a height of 642 m (Mt. Thullier) above sea level, and coastal plains.
They are hunters and food gatherers, dependent on forest and marine resources for sustenance.
After the tsunami in 2004, which devastated their settlement on the western coast, they were relocated to Afra Bay in the North Coast and Campbell Bay.
The NGT's order to stay the Great Nicobar Island project and constitute a committee to review the environmental clearance aims to ensure that the project is compliant with the Island Coastal Regulation Zone 2019 and tribal rights.

UPSC Civil Services Examination, Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

Q1. Which one of the following pairs of islands is separated from each other by the ‘Ten Degree Channel’? (2014)

(a) Andaman and Nicobar (b) Nicobar and Sumatra (c) Maldives and Lakshadweep (d) Sumatra and Java

Q2. Which of the following have coral reefs? (2014)

Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Gulf of Kachchh
Gulf of Mannar

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1, 2 and 3 only (b) 2 and 4 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

Q3. In which one of the following places is the Shompen tribe found? (2009)

(a) Nilgiri Hills (b) Nicobar Islands (c) Spiti Valley (d) Lakshadweep Islands