Local communities in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI) have grown accustomed to modern water and sanitation infrastructure in the decade since the Asian Tsunami. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Malini Shankar
CAR NICOBAR, India, Sep 5 2014 (IPS)

When the 2004 Asian Tsunami lashed the coasts and island territories of India, one of the hardest hit areas were the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI), which lie due east of mainland India, at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

Remote and isolated, the tribal communities that occupy these idyllic isles have lived for centuries off the land, eschewing all forms of modern ‘development’ and sustaining themselves off the catch from the rich seas that surround them.

But when the tsunami struck without warning on Boxing Day, and traditional wooden houses erected on bamboo stilts were washed away, surviving commuties scattered across these islands have been forced to reckon with their primitive lifestyle and open the doors to some changes, especially in Car Nicobar, capital and administrative nerve-centre of the Nicobar Islands.

One of the most notable changes has been in the realm of sanitation, hitherto an unhealthy mix of open defacation and forest-based waste management.

Before a major relief and rehabiliation operation got underway in the aftermath of the tsunami, many tribal communities in Nicobarese villages had rejected potable water schemes such as the desalination plant installed in the village of Chaura, where the population of 1,214 people expressed hesitation about drinking water “from a machine”.

Toilet facilities were also extremely limited, with most residents “answering nature’s call by going behind a bush”, according to a sports ministry official from the division of Kakana who gave his name only as Benedict.

When IPS visited an interim tsunami shelter in Kakana, Car Nicobar, in 2007, 25 months after the tsunami, the situation had scarcely improved. A hole in the ground across from the relief shelter served as a communal facility, and could only be accessed by leaping onto a mound of dug-up earth and navigating the moist forest floor, hoping to avoid an encounter with snakes en route to the bathroom.

The ‘structure’ consisted of nothing more than a deep hole in the forest floor, covered on all four sides by plastic sheeting. It lacked a roof, a tap and a light.

Locals were still trying to come to terms with the fact that their freshwater supply, once a boundless natural bounty originating from springs in the volcanic islands, had become badly polluted after the natural catastrophe.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) report on sanitation prospects on the island in early 2005 found several cases of diarrhoeal outbreak among survivors housed in temporary camps, which affected hundreds of the roughly 1,300 residents.

Now, most villages have toilets and sanitation systems in individual homes, and locals are slowly opening up to the necessity of improved waste-management systems. IPS interviewed tsunami survivors across five Nicobar islands – Car Nicobar, Kamorta, Campbell Bay, Little Nicobar, and Katchall – who expressed the universal opinion that receiving access to water and sanitation facilities, as well as permanent shelters designed and constructed by the government of India, has done them good.

“There are a few issues like water scarcity and discomfort in the humid summer months,” said 46-year-old Muneer Ahmed, chief tribal captain in Pilpillow, Kamorta. “Zinc sheet roofing and concrete houses are tough as they are weather insenstive, compared to weather-sensitive straw huts.”

“But,” he told IPS, “We are grateful for greater security.” His words reflect a prevailing attitude across the islands that returning to flimsy thatched-roof homes – despite their proximity to the beach, which most Nicobarese depend on for sustenance – is simply not an option with the memory of the killer waves still fresh in the minds of the survivors.

The same holds true for water and sanitation. Local communities now get water from infrastructure provided by the Public Works Department, Sakshi Mittal, deputy commissioner of Nicobar, told IPS, adding, “They don’t reject this supply anymore.”

Coastal fisherfolk in Tamil Nadu’s tsunami battered coasts of Nagapatnam and Cuddalore are also benefiting from similar schemes, many of them overseen by the Swiss Development Agency. “We have tiled bathrooms with ventilation and western toilets with bidets,” a fisherwoman named Vanitha in Nagapatnam told IPS.

Such developments among fisher communities are crucial as the international community finalises a new roadmap for sustainable development that will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015.

Key among the new poverty eradication targets, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will be the inclusion of the most marginalised segments of society.

In India, this includes fisher communities who were the worst hit in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, with about 150,000 fisherfolk losing their homes to the tsunami. In ANI, close to 10,000 people lost their lives and and scores more were exposed to tough living conditions.

Despite construction by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) of 8,500 latrines around the islands after the tsunami, there remains a 35 percent deficit of decent sanitation facilities today.

In general, health indicators among the islands’ tribal population are higher than in other parts of India, with a maternal mortality ratio far below the national average of 250 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Although other health indicators like life expectancy rates were higher in the states of Kerala and ANI (67.6 percent and 73.4 percent respectively), the tsunami brought fresh new troubles, such as fears of malaria outbreaks, or epidemics of vector-borne diseases like dengue.

Relief workers and emergency response teams, sponsored by the government, international NGOs and the United Nations, took the lead on eradicating mosquito breeding grounds, distributing bednets, spraying insecticide in mosquito-heavy areas, as well as stocking local water bodies with a species of fish with an appetite for mosquito larvae.

According to a WHO assessment a year after the tsunami, Indian health authorities also launched measles vaccinations campaigns in the areas hardest hit by the disaster, namely the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of ANI, boosting measles immunisation coverage to 96.3 percent in the latter.

While they hope against hope to be spared another disaster, some of India’s most vulnerable communities are today far more resilient than they were a decade ago.

Part 1 of this series can be read here.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Excerpt:

A rare sight of a traditional hut of the Nicobarese in the post-tsunami era. Seen here is a Nicobari family that has retained its traditionally designed hut alongside a “permanent shelter” made of concrete that was given by the government as compensation for loss of household in the Asian Tsunami. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Malini Shankar
PORT BLAIR, Andaman Islands, India, May 12 2014 (IPS)

May and November bring the most vicious cyclones to the Bay of Bengal rim countries in Southeast Asia.

Local governments must scramble disaster mitigation measures, including food storage, cleaning cyclone shelters, stocking up water supply, sanitising infrastructure, and evacuating people to safety in all the regions bordering the bay.“Going by economists’ definition of supply and demand forces of the market, the Jarawas live in opulence." -- Prof. Anvita Abbi

The cyclones are the harbinger of the monsoons that play out in various densities for months on end across the subcontinent, often putting lives and livestock at peril.

Risking rejection of culture-insensitive food distribution to the evacuees, the governments generally resort to survival rations that stress shelf lives and transportation logistics, often ignoring the native wisdom in nutrition balance and distribution that complements local agro-meteorological and hydro-geological conditions.

For example, in times of cyclones or unseaworthy weather, “the Great Andamanese resort to hunting and gathering,” said Anvita Abbi, a professor at the Centre for Linguistics, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University,who has deciphered the language of the Great Andamanese in the Andaman Nicobar Islands.

“When a particular bird sings a song, they know it is time to go turtle hunting on the beach instead of fishing in the sea,” Prof. Abbi told IPS.

The tribes defer to geomorphological conditions and respect Nature’s benevolence for disaster resilience. The governments’ panic might seem redundant to the tribes: no wonder they are at odds with the mainstream society and shun contact with a corrupted system that favours a few.  The tribes’ traditional wisdom helps them literally coast to safety.

“The Nicobarese and Jarawas switch to harpoon fishing in shallow waters during inclement weather. They have boats for deep sea fishing and dugout/outrigger canoes and catamarans for coastal fishing,” said A. Justin Superintending, an anthropologist at the Port Blair Regional Centre of Anthropological Survey of India.

The outrigger canoes and dugout boats are eco-friendly to coral reefs in shallows seas. “The people of Chowra are best known for making fishing boats. In return they barter other goods and services that money cannot buy in the tribal district of Nicobar Islands,” Justin told IPS.

“The Great Andamanese shift their fishing activities to streams and rivers inland when the sea is rough,” added Prof. Abbi.

In Orissa, the tribes and people of the state use five different varieties of rice to complement the seasonal changes in the disaster-prone state.

Alternate cropping with complementary crops that can act as natural pesticide is another tradition of the Soligas in B. R. T. Hills in Karnataka in India. The Soligas also know the art of refrigerating food in bamboo stems.

The tribes of Ladakh refrigerate yoghurt in yak hide bags to make butter tea. “To cope with extreme weather in Ladakh’s cold desert, they consume fatty foods and drink lots of butter tea,” Chewang Norphel, a social worker in Leh, told IPS.

“The tribal houses are made of sun-dried mud brick with mud plaster and low roof. Small sized door and windows facing the north side are other features of ecofriendly architecture.”

According to Dr. Avula Laxman, senior deputy director in the Division of Community Studies of National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau – National Institute of Nutrition, “Yes, tribals do adopt coping strategies, especially during natural calamities like droughts/floods.

“They adopt different measures such as consumption of low cost foods, reduce food consumption, borrow food or cash depending on their socio economic status, seek assistance from Government or Administration, use stocked grains, or food stocks or rely on savings, may migrate for employment or sell assets to buy food” according to a survey conducted by the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad, Laxman told IPS.

The practise of communal cooking and communal eating is based on sharing resources, and individualism is anathema to tribal society.

Another best practice that they have “transferred as a low cost technology” to modernised humanity is breast milk banks.

Traditional wisdom has it that if a mother dies at childbirth and the child survives, any other lactating mother in the community or even in a hospital assumes the responsibility of breast feeding.

Even when a natural mother lacks enough breast milk, other nursing mothers take over to provide the infant essential nutrition and resilience. In Jarawa society, in fact, every lactating mother breast feeds every newborn infant to foster a bonding in the newer generations, according to the book “Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the 20^th Century” by Kiran Dhingra.

“Their kinship terms have evolved. It is not surprising that lactating women who stay back in Strait Island get to babysit the kids of those away in employment in Port Blair. It is therefore not surprising that they breast feed another infant,” said Abbi.

This tradition permeates a cross-section of Indian society, transcending barriers of caste and creed. This is the root of the concept that there are no orphans in tribal societies even if they have “precise linguistic expressions for bereavement of siblings and in laws,” according to Prof. Abbi.

Laxman said that, “Tribals are trying to adopt urban and rural cultures, because of encroachment/migration of rural populations into tribal areas. The tribals’ unique culture is totally changed.

“Because of the Public Distribution System programmes, the tribals are compelled to eat rice continuously, because rice is chiefly/easily available at fair price shops. They are changing their healthy lifestyles to modern unhealthy lifestyles. This was observed especially in Kerala tribal population, leading to high stress, insecurity in their lives, leading to high hypertension and high diabetes even among tribal populations.”

Call them fair weather friends but the hill tribes like “Gaddi and Lahauli tribes of Lahaul and Spiti in Himachal Pradesh India adapt to the geomorphological conditions in the avalanche-prone area to shift their livestock to greener pastures in the plains during summers and stock up food grains and dry rations for the long winters,” said forest officer Hira Lal Rana in Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh.

Prof. Abbi sums up the import of traditional wisdom for disaster resilience. “Going by economists’ definition of supply and demand forces of the market, the Jarawas live in opulence because their demand and supply of their needs is favourably tilted towards the Jarawas.

“The forests supply more than enough of what they need so they live in opulence.  Economists say reaching an equilibrium point of demand and supply curve is the hallmark of development. This is met by the forests. They don’t need and they don’t want our system which creates subservience.”

Mangrove forests effectively shielded some coastal areas from the Asian tsunami, while those areas without mangrove cover suffered immense damage. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Malini Shankar
PORT BLAIR, India, Dec 26 2012 (IPS)

In commemoration of the eighth anniversary of the Asian tsunami, Wednesday was a day of prayer and mourning across the Andaman Nicobar Islands – located at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea – and south India’s coastal Tamil Nadu state, two areas that suffered thousands of casualties on that fateful day.

Also known as the ‘Boxing Day Tsunami’, the gigantic waves claimed 230,000 lives across South and Southeast Asia on Dec. 26, 2004. While the northern Andaman Islands were largely spared the pounding, the southern Nicobar Islands were virtually flattened by the tsunami.

As the islanders remembered their dead, they also noted with gratitude that which spared them even more destruction – the mangrove forests that shielded the islands from the killer waves.

Rana Mathew, former Public Relations Officer of ANI, told IPS, “The mangroves played a crucial role in saving the North Andaman Islands from the tsunami waters. The thick mangrove forest surrounding the island chain provided a protective cover… saving many lives.”

“Mangroves act as a living buffer, or bioshield, preventing coastal erosion and damage to infrastructure and loss of life by reducing the force of the winds and waves passing through them; so that there is much less damage inland from these destructive forces of nature,” Alfredo Quarto, executive director of the Mangrove Action Project (USA), told IPS.

“In Thailand, damage to the mangrove-lined coast up to a certain distance inland is documented; evidence suggests that mangrove forests prevented further damage inland. The brunt of the wave force did not pass further inland and was seemingly dissipated by the first line of mangrove defence,” he added.

Denis Giles, editor of the Andaman Chronicle in Port Blair, recounted the horror he experienced eight years ago: “I was asleep when the earthquake struck. I took out my camera and rushed to the Haddo Wharf where a building had collapsed, trapping people. Commotion ruled. Two ships collided.

“I noticed a ripple in the sea, and then water gushed inland. The Chatham Bridge disappeared under the seawater. Radio reports said the Nicobars had vanished. It felt like the world was going to end…mangroves certainly helped save human habitation in the Andamans,” he told IPS.

Great Nicobar – the southernmost island, nearest to the epicentre in Sumatra – was engulfed, possibly because the mangroves bordering the island had been destroyed in favour of building a helipad, school and hospital.

“Nowhere was the violence of the tsunami felt more than in Katchal and Trinket, except perhaps the Great Nicobar Island. Trinket Island was trifurcated and declared unfit for human habitation by the (Indian) Administration. Yet within two years the people of Trinket returned and recolonised the trifurcated Trinket, which was saved by the mangroves,” Samir Acharya of the Society for Andaman Nicobar Ecology (SANE) told IPS.

“The destroyed mangroves are coming up again, perhaps as insurance against any future tsunami. The biggest contribution of the mangroves was protection of the freshwater source, which made recolonisation possible. The large area of mangroves in Katchal substantially reduced the impact of the tsunami and the island would probably be depopulated if the mangroves were not there.”

According to the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation’s ‘Toolkit for Establishing Coastal Bioshields’, “Walls of water 10 metres (33 feet) high penetrated up to three kilometres inland in some islands, causing extensive damage in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Pondicherry.”

“Almost 154,000 houses were either destroyed or damaged, entailing losses of about 228.5 million dollars. The tsunami destroyed or damaged nearly 75,300 fishing crafts including wooden catamarans, mechanised boats and trawlers worth about 215 million dollars; fishing gear worth 15 million dollars were also lost leading to loss of livelihood for thousands of fishing families.”

The experience of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands eight years ago point the way forward for disaster management policy in India, which cannot afford to become complacent and allow its coastal inhabitants to suffer similar destruction in the case of another disaster.

Environmental scientists and researchers believe that policies to tackle the threat of another tsunami need only turn to natural ecosystems for advice.

Dr. V. Selvam, lead author of the Toolkit and director of coastal systems research at MSSRF, singled out the experiences of two villages in Tamil Nadu as examples of the effectiveness of mangrove forests. The first village, T.S. Pettai, suffered little loss of life and property thanks to the presence of mangroves, whereas the mangrove-bereft Muzhukkuthurai village experienced much destruction.

“Eleven people died and 136 houses (88 percent of the village) were totally damaged due to the tsunami in Muzhukkuthurai village,” Selvam told IPS, whereas T.S. Pettai reported no deaths.

Shekhar Kumar Niraj, field director of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, reiterates the role of bioshields in disaster mitigation. “Coral reefs absorb dynamic forces like tsunamis and cyclones. The Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, comprised largely of an underwater reef, effectively prevented damage from the tsunami while the absence of such reefs north of Rameshwaram saw widespread damage to the coastal communities: Nagapatnam was devastated by the tsunami.”

“The December 2004 tsunami brought home the role mangroves can play in reducing the damage to life and property of coastal communities. Although a tsunami is a rare occurrence, India’s coasts are regularly under threat from various other natural hazards such as cyclones, storms, sea surges and flooding, which cause heavy damages to property and human lives,” Dr. Gladwin G. Asir, a marine geologist who worked with the Tuticorin-based NGO Peoples’ Action for Development, told IPS.

The fact that neither the Government of India nor state governments have acknowledged the role mangroves can play in disaster mitigation speaks volumes for the political will to implement effective disaster risk reduction policies in the country.

Elephants in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are in danger of being culled. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Malini Shankar
PORT BLAIR, India, Oct 5 2012 (IPS)

Midway through Wildlife Week in India, celebrations have been marred by news that 29.8 kilogrammes of ivory, worth 336,800 dollars, had been seized on the Andaman Trunk Road.

“Chances are that the feral elephants in Northern Andamans fell prey to poachers,” Denis Giles, editor of the Andaman Chronicle in Port Blair, told IPS.

Though they are a highly protected species under India’s Wildlife Protection Act, elephants on the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI), which lie at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, are deprived of all protection, reflecting a serious lack of political will for wildlife conservation.

Now, spotted deer introduced by the British as a source of protein in the Islanders’ diet, and feral elephants introduced for logging, are in danger of being culled because they are considered an ‘invasive species’.

The issue has generated hot debate across the country, with scientists, conservationists and researchers deeply divided over how to tackle the problem.

Chief Wildlife Warden for the Forest Department, Dr. Shashikumar, told IPS, “There is no credible estimate of the size of the cheetal (spotted deer) population on the Islands. Today, about 86 of the 130 elephants that were shipped to the Islands for logging are domesticated and are mainly in the custody of the Forest Department and Corporation.”

When logging stopped, 40 of the elephants were abandoned by their captors on Interview Island, located 925 kilometres south-east of Kolkata, and 10 elephants were dumped in the jungles of North Andamans, 20 nautical miles southwest of the Myanmar Coco Islands.

According to a recent study by the Foundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and Learning (FERAL), a Pondicherry-based NGO, “The presence of introduced herbivores has led to the local disappearance of a few species and is likely to affect species richness over large parts of the island chain, if not controlled.”

“Forest Department sources have maintained that cheetal are causing habitat damage. However, the type of damage being caused and the likely consequences on the forest (ecosystem) have not been quantified,” according to the FERAL study.

This argument that invasive creatures are decimating the fragile island ecosystem has found support among people like Dr. K. Sivakumar, scientist in Endangered Species Management at the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun, who told IPS, “It is neither recommended nor feasible to introduce any kind of birth control programmes for cheetal in the Andamans. Elimination is the only option.”

He also dismissed the idea of relocating the deer, claiming they are far too sensitive to survive capture and relocation.

On the other hand, “Trying a birth control programme for elephants, as they are a smaller population, is recommended,” Sivakumar explained.

“Animal welfare advisors must also offer solutions. No budgets are made available for removal of cheetal in a humane manner, or for that matter feral dogs in the Andamans, which threaten to wipe out endangered species,” Bittu Sahgal, editor of the Sanctuary Asia Magazine in Mumbai, told IPS.

Culling sets dangerous precedents: elephants and cheetal are both listed as endangered animals under the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA) of 1972; they enjoy legal protection from hunting in most parts of India.

But Shashikumar explained to IPS that WPA regulations do not protect ‘invasive species’ in the Islands, and cheetal are often hunted by the local communities. “As and when hunting cases are detected action has been taken,” he said, adding that poachers exploit the lax laws, wantonly killing deer.

The lack of legal protection for elephants on the Islands possibly explains the cache of ivory seized in the Andamans earlier this week.

“The Wildlife (Protection) Act does not include the term ‘culling’. Only the Federal Government has the power to declare a wild animal ‘vermin’ for a specified area, through a notification valid for a specified period only,” said Praveen Bhargav, a Wildlife First trustee.

Conservationists around India are strongly against culling.

“Culling is the most disgusting and detrimental way to contain wild animals. (Instead), the elephants can be brought back to the mainland as soon as rescue centres are put up. The deer should be left in place. It is easy to introduce some form of birth control or see which predators were native to the islands before being wiped out,” wildlife activist and Member of Parliament, Maneka Gandhi, told IPS in New Delhi.

“Although expensive, given the small population of elephants it is logistically feasible to capture and translocate elephants to the mainland but there might be a certain level of injury during translocation,” said Sivakumar.

Humans must account for introducing species, and ensure their survival. If it was possible to ship the animals to the Islands in the first place, then shipping them back should be logically plausible, conservationists argue.

(END)

Excerpt:

Nile crocodiles and estuarine (saltwater) crocodiles account for the deaths of hundreds of human beings every year. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Malini Shankar
PORT BLAIR, Aug 15 2012 (IPS)

Twenty two-year-old Ajay Kallu, hailing from the Bakultala village in northern Andamans, was devoured by an estuarine crocodile when he waded waist deep into a creek to fish on the morning of Aug. 1, marking the fifth fatal crocodile attack in 28 months in the remote Islands that lie at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

Wildlife officer Dr. Shashikumar told IPS, “On receiving report of this incident the forest officials rushed to the site by road; traffic regulations (for) convoys in the Jarawa Reserves delayed our arrival by nine hours. By then it was dark and too late for search and rescue; we have laid traps to net the crocodile for relocation.”

The first reported incident in this latest string of attacks was a U.S. tourist killed by a saltwater crocodile in April 2010.

“It is impossible to tell why it happened; some experts feel it might have been a migratory crocodile that attacked a snorkeler. It was a very unlucky coincidence because it was the first time ever, and the only recorded incident thus far to take place outside a creek in the open sea,” Samit Sawhney, who was in charge of Barefoot Resorts in Andaman’s Havelock Island at the time of the killing, told IPS.

Shrinking space in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, caused largely by expanding human settlements, has led to an increase in human-animal conflict. Conservationists fear that an increase in human deaths could lead to the culling of errant wildlife.

“Roughly 70 years of expanding human settlement (has led to) widespread encroachment of crocodile habitat,” wildlife researcher Manish Chandi of the Andaman Nicobar Environment Team in Port Blair told IPS.

“Nesting habitats, freshwater streams and estuarine creeks are now paddy cultivation landscapes,” he said. “Increased boat traffic and intensive fishing encroach on crocodiles’ habitat. Destruction of littoral, mangrove and beach swamps also encroach on the habitat of Salties (saltwater or estuarine crocodiles) in the islands,” Chandi added.

Irresponsible disposal of hotel waste, fertilisers, chicken feed, meat leftovers, domestic sewage and effluents from the tourism, logging, marine food processing and paper industries into the creeks have turned crocodiles into scavengers, and predators of other, smaller scavengers like dogs and jackals.

Gradually, crocodiles have lost their fear of human beings. Mohan Halder, head of the Tushnabad village development council located 25 kilometres northwest of Andaman’s capital Port Blair, told IPS that “crocodiles now dare to enter dry land; now we know that all those who went missing during fishing were killed by crocodiles.”

Jarawas, the indigenous inhabitants of the islands, who have fallen victim to aggressive crocodiles while rafting or wading in the creek and lived to tell the tale, only confirm Halder’s suspicions.

Sanjeev Mondal of the Ograbraj Village of Ferrarganj, about 30 kilometres northwest of Port Blair, agrees that “callous waste disposal and illegal slaughterhouses are an issue in Ograbraj”.

“But then in Manpur, where there are no slaughterhouses, a woman who herded her cattle through the creek towards her home was also killed by a crocodile,” he told IPS.

Mondal lays the blame for these incidents with the forest department, which he claims has failed to “take precautions to tie nets in crocodile infested creeks to prevent crocodiles from entering human settlements”.

But these precautions are easier said that done. According to Chandi, “Maintaining enclosures to keep crocodiles out of the village area may not be entirely feasible, given the need for dinghies to navigate into creeks in village precincts.”

Balance of nature disturbed

Sapan, a farmer from Collinpur village in Ferrarganj, 35 kilometres north of Port Blair, laid out the consequences of this new phenomenon, which has disturbed ancient life patterns of both humans and animals.

“With (an) increase in crocodile attacks, fear stalks people; they have stopped fishing. We have cultivated for eons but there was never the risk of fatal crocodile attacks.”

“The increase in the crocodile population is because the Forest Department has relocated overpopulated crocodiles into these creeks for ‘wildlife management’,” he charged. “If necessary, the department must kill these crocodiles,” he said angrily.

“Relocating problematic crocodiles to the Loha Barack Crocodile sanctuary in South Andamans is a possibility, but the problem cannot be wished away because carrying capacity is an issue in the sanctuary too,” Shashikumar told IPS.

The latest crocodile attack in Bakultala prompted Member of Parliament, Bishnupada Ray, to call for “identifying and killing the killer crocodile besides shifting the entire habitat of the estuarine crocodiles”. Absent a seismic event to rival the power of the 2004 Sumatra earthquake, which could redesign the entire landscape, this is an impossible task.

“Local communities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands – both settler and indigenous – have displayed high levels of tolerance toward crocodiles with whom they live and have been living for over a century,” Chandi stressed. “Catchy media headlines, (provoked) by the MP’s statement, could change the way people regard these animals.”

Furthermore, crocodile attacks have been reported in Bakultala, Collinpur, Havelock, Hut Bay, Tushnabad, Ograbraj, Manpur and Baratang. So the idea of identifying, trapping or relocating one lone crocodile is laughable, at least to experts.

Estuarine crocodiles are also guarded by the Wildlife Protection Act as a Schedule 1 “critically endangered animal”, which means killing them would risk imprisonment and fines.

Human encroachment has not only suffocated animals’ habitats but also torn to shreds the delicate balance that had hitherto determined peaceful coexistence between human beings and wildlife.

Increasingly, the relationship is being determined by violence. But experts warn that humans must steer clear of retaliatory acts, as wildlife lives by instinct, not reason.

“If a crocodile cannot live in peace in a creek where else must it go?” asked Zubair Ahmed, editor of the local daily ‘Light of Andamans’ in Port Blair.

Long-term strategies have to be evolved to mitigate human-animal conflict. For example, consumption of locally produced goods and services can minimise the human footprint, and better utilisation of human capital can give a tremendous boost to the economy without ruining the environment.

(END)

*Malini Shankar is a wildlife photojournalist, radio broadcaster and filmmaker based in Bangalore, India.

Excerpt:

A reconstructed school at Chukchuka in Car Nicobar Island serves as an emergency shelter. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Malini Shankar
PORT BLAIR, India, Jun 3 2012 (IPS)

Islanders on India’s Great Nicobar Island in the Bay of Bengal, barely 144 kilometres from Sumatra, fled when they felt the first tremors of the 8.6 magnitude earthquake on Apr. 11. They leaped across creeks inhabited by estuarine crocodiles, haunted by memories of the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami that took the lives of thousands of people.

The residents took refuge in shelters that lacked ‘earthquake safe’ certification. They were literally caught between the devil and the deep sea,  since a tsunami originating off Sumatra can arrive on the Great Nicobar Island within 15 to 20 minutes.

Though the tsunami didn’t come, the earthquake in April exposed many Indian Ocean littoral states’ lack of preparedness against increasingly frequent natural calamities.

Chief Secretary of the Andaman Nicobar Island (ANI) Administration, Shakti Sinha, said, “We did not issue a tsunami warning in Great Nicobar as (the wave) was likely to hit only the Island’s west coast that is devoid of inhabitants.”

“As per standard operational procedure, the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) identified the regions under risk and issued warnings to only two Nicobar islands, where the public was advised to move to higher grounds,” T. Srinivas Kumar, oceanographer at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), informed IPS.

INCOIS is the official agency designated to map the tsunami hazard for all countries on the Indian Ocean Rim – Australia, Bangladesh, Comoros, Reunion Islands, Indonesia, India, Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, Tanzania and Yemen.

INCOIS is responsible for the safety of 74.85 million coastal residents around the Indian Ocean. Sumatra’s coast has triggered the bulk of the world’s seismic tsunamis in the last millennium.

“The Administration’s actions conformed to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)’s and INCOIS’s guidelines; accordingly, islanders from Kamorta and Katchal were evacuated to safety swiftly,” Sinha confirmed.

But Zubair Ahmed, a journalist in Port Blair, told IPS that the absence “of mass transport vehicles for evacuation (shows) the challenge is now translating strategy into to action”.

For instance, India’s state-run TV Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) did not receive the official tsunami warning. Thanks to personal initiatives, Doordarshan was “ready with a text scroll and broadcast the first tsunami alert within 15 minutes of the warning”, station director Sajan Gopalan told IPS.

All India Radio in Port Blair aired no announcements about the tsunami warning. “ITEWC disseminates tsunami bulletins to all stakeholders, as mandated in the NDMA guidelines,” INCOIS’s Kumar clarified. That Doordarshan and AIR are not subscribing to early warning alerts highlights a glaring deficiency in disaster preparedness. AIR officials were unavailable for comment.

Ashok Sharma, director of the Directorate of Disaster Management (DDM) for ANI said “We are in the process of incorporating all departments for coordination.”

“The DDM will now upgrade technologies like mass (text messages), electronic display boards and loudspeakers for mass communication of early warning alerts,” Sharma added. The fact that these basic steps are being taken eight years after the Asian Tsunami shows negligence on the part of officials.

Following the tsunami in 2004, India’s Central Food Technology Research Institute “suggested” setting up 22 nationwide hubs for air-dropping culturally sensitive, nutritious, pre-cooked food packets during disasters, but this plan never materialised. However, “two months of supplies are available on all the islands,” Sharma assured IPS.

Still, the Island Administration has no temporary shelters on the disaster-prone islands because the “costs of constructing a second housing establishment for a rare natural calamity are prohibitive; instead government schools serve effectively because they have water supply, sanitation, storage space, and large halls,” Sinha explained.

India is not the only country unprepared for disasters. Sri Lanka’s chaotic traffic congestion during the Apr. 11 emergency prompted President Mahinda Rajapakse to instruct the “staff of the Disaster Management Centre to revise plans for traffic management during evacuation,” J.M.S. Jayaweera, director of the preparedness division of DMC Sri Lanka, told IPS.

In the Maldives, officials struggled to evacuate unevenly distributed populations in far-flung islands.

Meanwhile, an audit of disaster preparedness plans in the ANI betrays even more shortcomings.

The assets, liabilities and consumption patterns of Islanders have not been inventoried, thereby preventing speedy compensation. Surplus telecommunications spectrum for emergencies remains a pipe dream – the INCOIS website was jammed on Apr. 11. Only some earthquake shelters are certified. Without inter-agency coordination, the practice of mock drills every 12 weeks is futile. Without mass transportation systems, traffic management plans are meaningless.

Ambulances do not have state of the art equipment and the Islands themselves do not have an air ambulance. Helicopter services are almost exclusively reserved for bureaucrats, while ailing patients are forced to await the departure of weather-dependent ships, which defeats the purpose of emergency medical care.

Since natural calamities are so unpredictable, disaster mitigation calls for foolproof preparedness against every possible eventuality.

Years of scientific research, including the study of Cetacean stranding on beaches, volcanic activity and historic earthquake patterns, have not brought us any closer to earthquake prediction.

Indonesia sits on the Sunda Trench that is at the vertex of two tectonic plates. The continual thrust of the Sunda Plate against the Indian Plate “causes subduction of the latter under the Sunda Trench. That is the reason why the northwest coast of Sumatra is so prone to large earthquakes”, a study by the Tectonic Observatory of the Caltech University concluded after the Asian Tsunami.

The United States Geological Survey’s “history of earthquakes” database reveals a recurrence of major earthquakes on the 11^th and 26^th of almost every month.

Earthquakes have occurred on Feb. 11, Mar. 11, Apr. 11 and Aug. 11 in the Malacca Straits, and Dec. 11 in Taiwan. The Andaman earthquake struck on Jun. 26, 1941, the Great Alaska earthquake on Mar. 27th, 1964, the Assisi earthquake on Sept. 26, 1997, the Gujarat Earthquake on Jan. 26, 2001, the Bam earthquake on Dec. 26, 2003 and the Asian Tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004. Large tsunamis have recurred in the same fault zone once in every 50-60-year cycle.

Considering that “the 2004 earthquake was only a partial rupture of the seismic stress” according to Caltech’s Tectonic Observatory, governments around the Indian Ocean need to be prepared for even worse disasters than those we have already seen.

*This is the first of a two-part series on hydrometeorological disasters in the Indian Ocean Rim.

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