The Great Nicobar Island is situated at the foot of the Andaman &
Nicobar Islands, southernmost islands of India belonging to the Indian subcontinent. Majority of the island is designated as Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve. A major reason for this is the island houses significant number of endemic and/or endangered species including Nicobar long-tailed Macaque, Nicobar Tree Shrew, Dugong, Nicobar Megapode, Serpent Eagle, Salt Water Crocodile, Marine Turtles and Reticulated
Python.
NITI Aayog’s plan to turn Andaman & Nicobar Islands into an economic hub at the expense of destroying the eco-sensitive zones of Campbell Bay and Galathea National Parks and pushing the rare species like Leatherback turtles; largest in the world, to extinction. The plan entails a range of projects that are
aimed at the commercial development of the entire region at the expense of destroying the natural habitat of the various endangered species.

Please read the whole article here - https://ijpiel.com/index.php/2021/08/05/niti-aayogs-project-for-great-nicobar-island/
Aabhas Pareek and Swadha Sharma, “NITI Aayog’s Project for Great Nicobar Island” (IJPIEL, 5 August, 2021).

Potential Existential Threats:

Some of the staunch critics are of the opinion that however attractive the proposition of the project is portrayed; one cannot just ignore the fact that it is stigmatized with real dangers which can in a short while erase the much accredit islands of Andaman & Nicobar from the face of the earth. Their primary concern is based on the very much real fear of depletion of water resources. It’s almost ironical that an island with three rivers flowing through it (Alexandria, Dogmar and Amritkaur) faces upon urbanization the fear of exhaustion of consumable water resources. There exist perennial streams naturally which make water available
throughout the year but before even thinking of any sort of urban development, there is a pre-requisite need for drawing out an engineered plan to use the available water resources sustainably. The other fears include the loss of tropical forest upon tourist attracted capitalism, contamination of surface or ground water which is limited in source as the rivers that flow are fed by rain and therefore, waste management must be the primary goal to prevent irreparable damage to natural water supplies. Another very dangerous repercussion of urbanisation can be the degradation of natural habitat in the Tribal Reserve Areas and intrusion of outsiders into Shompen and Nicobarese areas which will render the forest unsafe for then, go against the Shompen Policy of which establishes prioritisation of tribal rights over large scale development proposals and be against the constitution. (Aabhas Pareek and Swadha Sharma, “NITI Aayog’s Project for Great Nicobar Island” (IJPIEL, 5 August, 2021). https://ijpiel.com/index.php/2021/08/05/niti-aayogs-project-for-great-nicobar-island/)

The onus/responsibility lies on our shoulders, as public and as a community, we need to save these eco-sensitive places -  saving the various endangered species and also to save these natural habitats for the future generations to come. It is our responsibility to stop the human greed on the name of development such as building the above mentioned -  transshipment port, constructing tourism resorts/hotels, construction of power plants which can cause destruction at a rampant rate to the eco-sensitive zone and to the people living on the island by exhaustion of water sources.
Please sign this petition to curb the projects essayed by NITI Aayog.