Andaman tribe struggles to survive

This week marks the one year anniversary of the extinction of the Bo tribe of the Andaman Islands. Several tribes on the islands, which belong to India and are off the coast of Burma, have gone extinct since their first contact with the outside world in the mid-19^th century.

Now there is concern that the Jarawa tribe will be next. The tribe has less than 400 members, and settlers have cut an illegal road through their forests, and poachers and tourists could introduce diseases for which they have not immunity.

“The Supreme Court of India, back in 2002, actually ordered the government to close [the road], for the protection of the tribe,” says Miriam Ross, the spokesperson for Survival International. “The local government has ignored [this ruling], bringing poachers into the forest, who steal the animals the tribe rely on, and tourists who stop to take pictures and give food to the tribe, sadly as if they were animals in a zoo.”

Miriam Ross says the local government must do more to protect the Jarawa, including keeping outsiders off their land.

“The India government’s policy towards the Jarawa is actually pretty good,” she told Vatican Radio. “The spirit of that isn’t always upheld.”

She says local authorities often try to “civilize” the tribe by removing them from their lands, a process she says has proved “disastrous” when implemented in other countries.

Listen to the full interview by Charles Collins with Miriam Ross: