One year after the death of the last member of the Bo tribe of the Andaman Islands, Survival International has warned that the neighbouring Jarawa tribe is also in danger. Boa Sr, the last of the Bo, died last January aged around 85. The Jarawa tribe number 365 people, and fiercely resisted contact with outsiders until 1998.
Now an illegal road cuts through the Jarawa’s rainforest, and poachers and tourists invade their land. Poachers steal the animals the Jarawa need to survive and, like the tourists, risk introducing diseases to which the tribe have no immunity. Survival is urging the Indian government to close the road and to keep outsiders out of the tribe’s forest.
The MP for the Andaman Islands, who wants to keep the road open, called last month for India to "civilise" the Jarawa.
The Bo, the Jarawa and other tribes are thought to have lived on the Andaman Islands for about 55,000 years, making them the descendants of some of the oldest human cultures on Earth. The Bo were one of ten tribes now collectively known as the Great Andamanese. Most of the Great Andamanese were killed or died of diseases brought by the British, who colonised the islands in 1858. The British tried to ‘civilize’ them by capturing them and keeping them in an ‘Andaman Home’, where many died.
The principal threat to the Jarawa’s existence comes from encroachment onto their land, which was sparked by the building of a highway through their forest in the 1970s. The road brings settlers, poachers and loggers into the heart of their land. This encroachment risks exposing the Jarawa to diseases to which they have no immunity, and creating a dependency on outsiders. Poachers steal the game the Jarawa rely on, and there are reports of sexual exploitation of Jarawa women.
Tourism is also a threat to the Jarawa, with tour operators driving tourists along the road through the reserve every day in the hope of ‘spotting’ members of the tribe. Despite prohibitions, tourists often stop to make contact with the Jarawa. A luxury tourist resort has been opened near the Jarawa reserve by the Indian travel company Barefoot, which will expose the tribe to further contact with outsiders.
In July last year, a report published by UNESCO called for the immediate closure of the Andaman Trunk Road. Its recommendations also included protection of the Jarawa’s territory from violation by poachers and other outsiders, and education of local Indian settlers and government officials about the Jarawa and their rights. It concluded that self determination "has to be the ultimate aim of any process that will involve the Jarawas – to help them negotiate with a rapidly changing, predatory world that exists around them."
Survival’s Sophie Grig said, "The Jarawa are perfectly capable of deciding their own future, as long as the forest they rely on is protected and they are not forced to live in the way someone else thinks best. History has shown that attempts to impose development on tribal people and remove them from their land are disastrous."
