Survival today called for tourists to boycott the main highway in India’s Andaman Islands – an illegal road which cuts through the land of the endangered Jarawa tribe.
The Andaman Trunk Road is both illegal – India’s Supreme Court ordered it closed in 2002, but it remains open – and highly dangerous for the Jarawa, who number just 365. The hunter-gatherer Jarawa have only had friendly contact with outsiders since 1998 and so tourists risk passing on diseases to which the tribe has little immunity. An epidemic could decimate the tribe.
Thousands of tourists, both Indian and international, travel along the road each month. Rules supposed to protect the Jarawa are routinely broken, and the Jarawa reserve is in effect a human safari park.