ple in ANI (not only the Shompen) are
addicted to tobacco and alcohol. There is
no conclusive evidence that government
distribution of rice, milk powder and soap
to the Shompen is improving their health
and it is clearly undermining traditional
food cultivation practices. We should also
consider whether the MTA’s assertions
about the destructiveness of shifting culti-
vation are merited in the case of the
Shompen, and whether the hunter-gath-
ering mode of existence is generally
destructive to the environment and
wasteful. (The draft policy statements
concerning environmental degradation
appear to have in view Manipur, Nagaland
and other north eastern states—regions
where general decadal rates of population
growth 1991-2001 have ranged from
twenty to more than sixty percent.) Has
Shompen resource use actually failed to
foster their “emotional attachment to the
land” and instead encouraged environ-
mental degradation? Given the failures of
settler agriculture and other modern eco-
nomic activity on Great Nicobar, it appears
rather that non-tribal people have some-
thing to learn from Shompen resource
management.
Towards an ecosystem assess-
ment of Great Nicobar
State “protection” of the Shompen cannot
forestall some kind of engagement with
modernity. The question is about how, on
what and whose terms, this engagement
is to be managed. The Nehruvian
Panchasheelof tribal policy stated that
tribal development should be measured
not in terms of money spent but in terms
of the demonstrated well-being of tribal
peoples. In pursuit of a Management
Action Plan for the GNBR, the Ministry of
Environment and Forests in 2001-2002
earmarked Rs. 18,500,000 ($ 410,000) for
“protection, habitat improvement, socio-
economic activities, and eco-development
activities and awareness generation.”^21
Ten times this amount would not neces-
sarily be money well spent if it is not
properly targeted. Development planning
must rest on comprehensive ecological
analysis, and the latter must take into
account issues of human participation and
social “location” in ecosystems and the
differential stakes of people in “ecosystem
services”.
The Shompen are dependent on forest,
rivers and sea for food, water, shelter,
fiber, cooking fuel and other bio-produce.
The Nicobarese depend more heavily than
the Shompen on the sea. The ecosystem
services on which recent settlers depend
History, cculture aand cconservation
Figure 5.Ihak and Shompen boys, Laful
village. (Courtesy Suresh Babu)
