This follows the news that tourists have been banned from the Indian islands of Andaman and Nicobar in the fear that they are bringing diseases that threaten the indigenous Jarawa tribe...
The Telegraph report that "Tourists are to be banned from large areas of resorts on the Indian islands because of fears they will bring disease which could wipe out the 350 remaining members of a local tribe...
The Indian government has introduced a buffer zone around a reservation for the threatened Jarawa tribe on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and ordered the closure of an expensive beach resort in an attempt to save the tribe from being driven into extinction...
Its Attorney General has told the Supreme Court there are now only 350 surviving members of the tribe, who are believed to be descendants of migrants from Africa, and that they are highly vulnerable to Western diseases and infections...
The government is determined to save the Jarawas after another of the islands' tribes was wiped out last month when its last surviving member died. Boa Sr, aged 85, was the last Bo-speaking member of the Great Andaman tribe which is believed to have migrated to the islands from Africa 65,000 years ago...
Until now, the Jarawas have fared better than the Bo because they have been protected by an official reservation in around 400 square miles of tropical rainforest. They survive by hunting wild boar and lizards, spear fishing on the blue waters off the island's palm-fringed beaches, and gathering seeds and berries from the forest...
They live a nomadic life in groups of around 50 tribesmen and women but since 1998, their unique lifestyle has come under increasing threat from the commercial world of tourism as increasing numbers have ventured out of the reservation...
In 1999 and 2006 measles, to which they have limited resistance, took a heavy toll on their population...
The new buffer zone will mean tourist resorts will not be allowed to operate within the three mile zone around their settlements on Middle and South Andaman Islands...
The decision by the Supreme Court was challenged by a local tourism company which established a small tent resort on Sunset Beach. Samit Sawhney, the firm's managing director, said that the government was targeting his company while continuing to operate tour buses into the Jarawa reservation and allowing other companies to trade in the buffer zone. "We're a responsible company. If this is for the Jarawas we will bite the bullet, but the government itself must stop all tourism inside the zone, but they are illegally encouraging tourism inside the tribal area," he said...
Sophie Grigg, senior campaigner for Survival International, said she welcomed the move to protect the Jarawa but remained concerned that it may not be enough...
She said large numbers of Bo tribes were wiped out not by direct contact with British officials during the colonial period, but by contact with others who had met them...
"The Jarawa are pretty isolated, the majority stay in the forest, hunting and gathering. Each time they make contact with tourists they risk contracting diseases they have no resistance to, especially so from tourists from long-haul flights," she said..."
Is this the beginning of the end of indigenous tourism? It will be interesting to see if this idea catches on...
Read this full report at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/india/7406182/Tourists-banned-from-Indian-islands-over-risk-of-killing-off-local-tribes.html
Barticus...
