Ecocide, not eco-tourism, planned in Great Nicobar Island

The Great Nicobar Island Development Project requires the diversion of over 130 sq km of pre-historic tropical forest land and has been granted a stage-1 clearance leading to the felling of around 1 million trees.

The controversial ₹72,000-crore ‘Great Nicobar Island Development Project (GNIDP), will now also include a ‘Global Port-Led City’ with an international and domestic cruise terminal to promote ‘sustainable and high-end eco-tourism’, according to the Union Ministry of Shipping.

“Even though these islands are far from Delhi, they are close to our hearts. Development of infrastructure and increasing tourism facilities in the region is the priority of the government,” Union Home Minister Amit Shah reiterated at the 7th meeting of the Island Development Agency in New Delhi last week.

Envisaged by NITI Aayog at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and fast-tracked by the environment ministry (MoEFCC) with dubious environmental impact assessment clearances in 2022, the GNID project includes the construction of the Galathea Bay International Container Trans-shipment Terminal (capacity of 14.2 million Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) unit of cargo), Great Nicobar International Airport (peak hour capacity of 4,000 passengers), Great Nicobar Gas and Solar Power Plant (450-MVA spread over 16,610 hectares), and two new greenfield coastal cities.

There is also official correspondence that talks of adding an ‘export-import port and shipbuilding and shipbreaking yards’, but it’s all classified information, as the government has been denying right to information (RTI) requests about environmental clearances for this mega project, on the grounds that it would affect India’s security and strategic concerns under Section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act. This is also purportedly the reason why the government is not sharing the report of the National Green Tribunal-appointed High Powered Committee that was constituted to revisit the hasty environmental clearances granted by the MoEFCC that will negatively impact at least 16,610 hectares of pristine forest land.

What is not a secret is that the Great Nicobar Island, the abode of the Shompens and the Nicobarese tribes, is covered in pristine rainforests that harbours numerous endangered species of flora and fauna, including the Nicobar pigeon, Great Nicobar Crake, Nicobar Megapode, the Nicobar crab-eating macaque, and Nicobar tree shrew, hundreds of kilometres of mangroves, and Pandan forests along its beaches that are nesting grounds of the giant leatherback turtles and some of the most stunning reef formations in the Bay of Bengal.

With its lush tropical landscapes, rich biodiversity, and relatively untouched beaches, the Great Nicobar Island, a UNESCO biosphere reserve, can be a perfect destination for ‘sustainable high-end eco-tourism’, only if it is maintained and managed like the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador or the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, with conservation as its main driver and the local population as its main stewards. However, the GNID project requires the diversion of over 130 square kilometre of pre-historic tropical forest land and has been granted a stage-1 clearance leading to the felling of around 1 million trees.

The construction of the port and coastal cities will also destroy coral reefs and the local marine ecosystem, posing an irreversible threat to the nesting habitats of terrestrial Nicobar Megapode birds and leatherback turtles. Ironically, in January 2021, the environment ministry listed Galathea Bay, as an ‘important marine turtle habitat’ and the ‘largest leatherback turtle nesting ground’ in the country. However, in yet another secret move, a week later, the sanctuary was denotified to facilitate the GNID project. The GNID project is built by using de-notification, deregulation, and de-reservation orders, very much like the bulldozers that are to follow soon.

More dangerously, the GNID project will also bring nearly 400,000 fresh settlers to the island during its span of three decades, which amounts to a 4,000% increase in its current population, posing a massive threat to the survival of the Shompens and violating the sanctity of the Nicobarese peoples’ ancestral lands. Shockingly, the objections raised by the Shompen people were not considered by the Narendra Modi government before it recommended denotification of their tribal reserve.

If that is not bad enough, now the ministry of shipping wants to bring thousands of domestic tourists, the ‘antithesis of civic sense and conservation’, to the island to finish the job that they have already begun in right earnest.

The government is justifying the ecocide by citing the importance of the project, for defence — to ward off the growing Chinese threat in the Indian Ocean, and for commerce — to tap into the international shipping trade route. One thing is certain, given the scale of devastation and complete lack of transparency, no ‘high-end tourist or a sustainable tourism operator’ is going to touch Great Nicobar Island with a barge pole in the next 30 years.

(Shailendra Yashwant is a senior adviser to Climate Action Network South Asia.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.