The Association of Indian Primatologists has warned that the Great Nicobar Island Development Project could severely endanger the endemic Nicobar long-tailed macaque and disrupt the island’s ecosystem irreversibly.

In a statement shared with Scroll on Wednesday, the collective of researchers said the Wildlife Conservation Plan being prepared as part of the project fails to address the gravity of threats to the endemic species.

“We are bound by morality and ethics to state that we can no longer remain a mute spectator and be a party to the brutalities to be inflicted upon the island and the species thereof,” the group stated. “We stand in absolute opposition to the Great Nicobar Project.”

The plan was a condition for the environmental clearance granted to the project on November 11, 2022, and was to be submitted within 15 days of clearance. The task was assigned to the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), now operating as the Wildlife Institute of India’s South India centre.

The project proponent, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation Limited, told the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change that SACON has prepared a conservation and management plan for the macaque, robber crab and other endemic species for a 30-year period, with a cumulative conservation budget of Rs 230.8 crores.

However, this plan and its budget have not been made public and were denied under the Right to Information Act, the Association of Indian Primatologists said.

Minutes of the project’s monitoring committee meeting held on November 21, 2024, that were recently made public state that SACON will receive Rs 59.49 crores over 30 years, with Rs 12.66 crores sanctioned for the first five years. SACON has sought two years to prepare the plan after conducting baseline studies.

The Association of Indian Primatologists reiterated that it had raised objections during the public hearing in January 2022, offering a scientific projection of the threats posed to the macaques. “We firmly assert that no Wildlife Conservation Plan is capable of mitigating the large-scale deforestation and land use alterations purported by the project,” the statement said.

The group said the Nicobar long-tailed macaques, also known as crab-eating macaques, “exhibit an incapability to tolerate high temperature and humidity”, which could worsen with deforestation and climate change. Changes in land use would cause a spike in local temperatures and humidity levels, reduce rainfall and damage rainforest thermal regulation, the association warned.

“Primates are increasingly dying of dehydration, heat stress and heatstroke even within degraded forests,” the researchers said. They also noted that food scarcity caused by precipitation decline would push macaques to seek human food sources, leading to conflict.

The researchers argued that the macaque’s ecological role, genetic structure, behaviour and immunology remain poorly understood. “It is impossible to gather critical data to inform its conservation and management in a short span of two years,” they said, warning that a flawed conservation plan could have irreversible consequences.

They cautioned that without long-term research, the plan risks being a “hollow procedural exercise”. “What good is a WCP when instead of informing policies it is obligated to clean up its mess?” the group asked, questioning the sincerity of biodiversity protection within the project, which they described as “indifferent towards the natural ecosystem”.

The association also cited examples of ecological collapse from large-scale deforestation in island habitats such as Simeulue Island in Indonesia, where long-tailed macaque populations declined by 99.5% in 40 years.

“We restate our stand three years hence, and maintain that the Nicobar long-tailed macaque has been facing unprecedented threats in Great Nicobar,” the association said. “The proposed project will directly impact about 27 groups and expose the rest to severe vulnerabilities.”

The association also expressed support for the island’s two indigenous communities, the Shompen and the Nicobarese. “We appeal for their rights, worldviews, and demands to be privileged over any other interests in every project decision.”

In a note accompanying the press release, the Association of Indian Primatologists said it had decided to speak publicly despite fear within the academic community. “There is an intense sense of fear in the academic/research community…We are not immune to it,” the group said.

Also read: Why the Great Nicobar project could spell doom for the island’s unique fauna