the Shompen are increasingly giving up
pandanusfruit for polished rice, although
the latter is of inferior nutritional value.
They are excellent workers with iron and
make their own daus (machete-like instru-
ments fashioned from iron slabs) and
spearheads. Despite their recent and grow-
ing dependence on “imports”, the Shompen
have sustained themselves through wise
use of natural resources. (For some plant
products used by the Shompen today, see
Table 1) Their economy is literally a subset
of the ecosystem they inhabit.
The Shompen depend on the Nicobar wild
pig as a food source, supplemented by the
occasional salt-water crocodile, python,
monitor lizard or sea turtle. The Shompen
hamlets closer to non-tribal habitation have
reported acute shortage of wild pigs. The
1972 Wildlife Protection Act prohibits non-
tribals from hunting wild pigs, but poaching
by outsiders is clearly jeopardizing the food
ways of the tribal population. Nutritional
deficiency correlates with disease suscepti-
bility. The erosion of the traditional
Shompen dietary pattern and food culture
is well under way. The substitution of rice
for pandanusis especially marked among
the tribals living closest to the immigrant
settlements. Settlers and other entrepre-
neurial outsiders tap the Shompen for rat-
tan, bamboo, honey, lemons, bananas,
coconuts, areca and other forest produce;
the Shompen exchange these (often
through the Nicobarese) for rice, cloth,
liquor, tobacco, salt and metal for daus.
Disruption of Great Nicobar ecosys-
tems
Deforestation and reforestation, extractive
industry and settled agriculture have not
generally been so damaging to Great
Nicobar ecosystems as they have been to
other parts of the ANI, as most of the sur-
face and coastline of Great Nicobar has
been made off limits to external entrepre-
neurs. Timber harvesting and mining have
been discontinued, although sand mining
continues in several coastal areas. Sand
mining and consequent coastal erosion
have been identified as a threat to a
remarkable but non-endemic species,
Dermochelys coriacea, the Giant
Leatherback Turtle. Great Nicobar contains
major nesting sites of these and four other
species of turtles. But coastal erosion may
be less dangerous to the turtles than other
threats. According to one recent estimate,
perhaps seventy percent of Giant
Leatherback eggs and hatchlings in ANI fall
victim to feral dogs.^11 Some species
endemic to Great Nicobar have seen visible
declines over the past few decades. One of
these is the Nicobar Megapode, Megapodus
freycinet nicobariensis, a flightless bird that
builds large colonial mounds on the ground;
eggs and young birds make easy prey for
feral dogs and cats. These birds have van-
ished altogether from the eastern coast of
Great Nicobar (closest to the modern settle-
ments) and they have become rare in all
parts of the island.The most visible alterations of the island’s
ecosystems have happened over the past
thirty years due to ill-planned land use by
settlers from mainland India.^12 The govern-
ment settled a group of 337 ex-servicemen
and their families on the eastern coast of
Great Nicobar in 1969. Initially, 1,499.65
sq. ha. of forest were clear-felled for these
settlers. The official allotment of land for
each family was eleven acres.^13 Traders,
shopkeepers and service providers have
joined these settlers. Only some settlers
had direct experience in farming, but even
among these many came from areas of
India, like Punjab, whose climate and soil
conditions are very different from those of
Great Nicobar, and their agricultural prac-
tices were accordingly inappropriate. Some
settlers have increased their land holdings
by encroaching on forested land. To say
that settler farming has been unsuccessful
on Great Nicobar would be an understate-