HYDERABAD: While the happy jamboree of the Indian sub-continent continues its sweet-and-not-so-sweet hullabaloo both in terms of sociopolitical and topographical ups and downs, the noise hardly is raised about other parts of the India especially those segregated by geographical distance that they are hardly remembered. Andaman and Nicobar, for instance, is remembered only for tourism or its proximity to the epicentre of 2004 Tsunami that caused magnanimous damage in the southeast aquatic/coastal region of Asia. Not many people write about the almost forsaken islands.
Author, photographer and researcher Pankaj Sekhsaria has chronicled the key environmental and cultural issues of the atolls in his new book: ‘Islands in Flux – the Andaman and Nicobar Story’ which is a compilation of his research on wildlife conservation, the indigenous Jarawa tribes and environmental hazards. The book was released recently at Goethe Zentrum Hyderabad.
The city-based author has done his research for two decades and had landed on the islands for its beauty. At the same time, too much of tourism exposure, he says, “is harmful to the islands.” Why? Because of the exploitation of the resources especially the harm that plastic does. He showed jelly fish floating like thin plastic or panni in Hindi which has earned the aquatic animal its name ‘panni machhi’. No wonder then, that a lot of sea creatures that eat ‘panni machhi’ mistake floating plastic sheets to be the fish and end up gobbling the same.
He also gave examples of six feet giant sea turtles which lay eggs on certain nests on the sand and when baby turtles hatch the city-lights confuse them at the time when they have to got to the sea – their natural habitat. It’s not just careless tourism that can hamper the natural resources in the islands, it’s the military exercises also stirring trouble. In 2008, missiles were tested in Nicobar Island that doesn’t have human population. He said, “When such tests are done on remote islands or even deserts, the idea of blank spaces comes to play. In reality, the space is full of rare flora and fauna that are not found elsewhere and are certainly threatened by such activities.”
Talking about the 2004 Tsunami he explained how that islands are among the most seismically active zones. That’s how parts of Andaman, during the fierce Tsunami, were raised by four feet while Nicobar Islands were submerged in sea by 15 feet. “Even on normal days that islands are shaken by mild earthquakes. My point is why for developmental projects the safety of animals, birds and the indigenous tribes are not taken in consideration?”