Survival International 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 human rights NGO points out that 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 now number just 365.
The hunter-gatherer Jarawa have only had contact with outsiders since 1998 and so tourists still risk passing on diseases to which the tribe has little immunity. An epidemic could decimate the tribe.
Each month thousands of tourists, both Indian and international, travel along the road. Survival alleges that rules supposed to protect the Jarawa are routinely broken making the Jarawa reserve "in effect a human safari park": Tour companies and cab drivers try to 'attract' the Jarawa with biscuits and sweets. Jarawa children are particularly attracted to food thrown from the vehicles, while a number of Jarawa children have been involved in accidents on the road, with one losing his hand as a result.
Local Andamanese organisation SEARCH, which supports Jarawa rights, has also joined the boycott campaign. Following a campaign by Survival in 2010 some tour companies stopped advertising tours through the Jarawa reserve, however, independent cab drivers and tour companies are still treating the Jarawa's homeland like a safari park. A resort on the edge of the Jarawa reserve has also closed, pending a decision by India's Supreme Court, as a direct result of that campaign.
Survival's Director, Stephen Corry said, 'We're calling today for all tourists to boycott the Andaman Trunk Road, which the local administration has kept open in defiance of a Supreme Court order nine years ago to close it. Despite the regulations tourists are still invading the Jarawa's territory, putting their lives at risk and treating them like animals in a zoo. If the situation does not improve we will call for a boycott of all tourism to the Andamans'.
More details: http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/jarawa