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2. RESPONSE TO PRESS RELEASE OF SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL DATED 15 JUNE 2009 REGARDING PROXIMITY OF A BAREFOOT RESORT PROPERTY TO THE JARAWA TRIBAL RESERVE

 

Section 1:

Factual inaccuracies in survival international’s press release

Section 2:

Barefoot’s position on subjective aspects of the press release

Section 3:

Substantiation of barefoot’s claims to ‘sustainable and socially responsible tourism development’

 

Section 4:

Chronological sequence of events

Section 5:

Summary of barefoot’s disagreement with the andaman administration: ground realities of our fight against a bullying system

Survival International’s press release dated 15 June 2009 is both defamatory towards Barefoot and grossly inaccurate in its content, and is surprisingly ill-researched.

 

Some of the factual inaccuracies contained in the press release are:

 

(1) Survival International states that “Barefoot has started building a resort barely 500 meters from the Jarawa Reserve”. This is grossly incorrect. The distance from the said resort location to the closest point of the Tribal Reserve is more than 3 kilometers as the crow flies, and longer than that in a straight line by land, but even this entails crossing of two creeks. It is also worth noting that the actual road access is more than 7kms in length. Appendix 1 contains a Google Earth snapshot showing the distance, calculated by Satellite Mapping to be approximately 3.2 kms between the nearest point of the resort and the reserve. Survival International’s statement of a distance of 500m is blatantly incorrect and would appear motivated to falsely sensationalize.

 

(2) Survival International also states that “The resort is next to a path the Jarawa use regularly as they hunt and gather in the forest”. This too is grossly incorrect. There is no forest in and around the resort property. The resort is surrounded by paddy fields and coconut and arecanut plantation owned by Indian farmers on three sides and the sea on the fourth side. There is absolutely no forest in the immediate area of the resort or beyond the resort for the Jarawa to hunt in or pass through while on hunt. And of course, there is nothing for them to hunt in and around the resort land unless of course Survival International suggests that they should choose to suddenly abandon their traditional ways and take to the hunting of Indian Settlers or gathering of the farm produce of Indian Settlers instead.

 

(3) A representative of Survival International also states that “One has to wonder why Barefoot is building a hotel so close to the Jarawa, if it is not to allow tourists the opportunity to intrude into their lives.” This is mischievous conjecture and wild extrapolation. The location of this Barefoot resort is, as stated prior, quite far from the reserve and tourism at the location is in no way connected with the Jarawa or Jarawa-related voyeurism.  Further, the beach fronting this property is a known Andaman beauty spot, marketed in various tourism brochures published by the Andaman Administration as “Sunset Bay, Colinpur”. It is a beautiful beach, with historical remains of Japanese World War II bunkers, fascinating vegetation, white sands, views of the world famous Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park from the beach and of course, arguably the best sunsets on view in all of South Andaman. It is for these reasons that the resort is located here, and not for the wholly specious motives suggested by Sophie Grig of Survival International

 

(4) Survival International, in its press release states that the resort “will also bring an influx of workers and settlers to the area, increasing the considerable pressure on the Jarawa”. The ground reality is that the tents were imported from outside the Andamans fully finished and no outside workers came to erect them; their bases, thatching and earthwork was done by villagers of Colinpur using locally available materials and the landscaping is also done by them. All employees are till date still drawn from the village of Colinpur, the person living furthest from the resort has a 20 minute walk to work. The only exception is the director in charge of the property, who is an Andaman born local resident, residing 35kms by road from the location. The movements of this director do carry a carbon footprint (offset many times over by our reforestation drive nearby) but I would hesitate to term his 40 minute drive to work, to a location 3.2 kms from the Tribal Reserve as the crow flies, as representing “an influx of workers and settlers to the area, increasing the considerable pressure on the Jarawa” as stated by Survival International

 

(5) Besides the blatant factual inaccuracies as listed above, the rest of the press release can be summarized / categorized in our opinion as either wild extrapolations of imagined effect without any linkage to any fact-based cause, i.e. it is misplaced conjecture.