Fears loom over India's 'Hong Kong' project on a remote island

“The forest is our supermarket,” says Anice Justin. “We get almost everything from the forests on these islands. It is what we survive on.”

Mr Justin, an anthropologist, has grown up in the Andaman and Nicobar islands straddling India’s east coast. A federally-administered territory, the ecologically-fragile region consists 836 islands, of which only 38 are inhabited. The Nicobar Islands are a distinct group of islands in the southern part of the territory, located some 150 km (93 miles) south of the Andaman Island.

Now Mr Justin watches with trepidation as India plans a multi-billion ‘Hong Kong-like’ development project on the Great Nicobar Island, one of the largest and most secluded parts of the Nicobar archipelago.

Built on a budget of 720bn rupees ($9bn or £6bn) and spread over 166 sq km, the project includes a transshipment harbour, a power plant, an airport and a new township, all designed to link the area to crucial global trade routes along the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.

Positioned near the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, the project promises to boost international trade and tourism - the government reckons that some 650,000 people will be living on the island by the time the project is completed in 30 years.

Experts say the multi-billion plan is also a part of India's larger goal to counter China's growing influence in the region.

But the scheme has sparked alarm among the islanders who fear the loss of their land, culture, and way of life, with the project threatening to push them to the brink of extinction.

He worries the group could meet the same fate as the Nicobarese, the biggest tribal group on the island, which suffered displacement in 2004, when a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean wiped out their villages.

Over the years, the government made efforts to resettle the people to a different area - but that too came at a price.

“Most Nicobarese here are now manual labourers and stay in a settlement instead of their ancestral lands,” Mr Justin says. "They have no place to grow crops or keep animals.”

There are fears that the project could also expose the Shompen to diseases.

“Uncontacted peoples have little to no immunity to outside diseases like flu and measles which can and do wipe them out - they typically lose around two thirds of their population after contact,” says Callum Russell, an official at Survival International, a conservation group.