It's one of the world's most isolated islands. Here come the bulldozers

A significant story is unfolding on the international scene. It's one of the world's most isolated islands. Here come the bulldozers June 7, 20267:51 AM ET By Omkar Khandekar , Leesha K Nair Apart from the indigenous people, the Great Nicobar island's population consists mainly of a few thousand settlers, who live in sleepy villages alongside dense forests. A major development project would dramatically alter the scene.

Omkar Khandekar/NPR hide caption toggle caption Omkar Khandekar/NPR THE GREAT NICOBAR ISLAND, India — Fireflies illuminate the edge of a forest on the Great Nicobar Island as field biologist Sumit Kumar tries to find a particularly shy creature. A soft hoot wafts through the thicket. Kumar scans the trees with his flashlight: Sitting on a branch is a rare, wide-eyed, fat Nicobarese Scops owl.

The Details

It narrows its eyes into what feels like a death-glare. Kumar smiles: "When you spot them, they look at you as if to say, 'You don't belong here. '" And he says, they're not wrong.

The Great Nicobar Island is part of an archipelago that lies deep in the Indian Ocean. Until mainland Indians started settling here a few decades ago, its humans consisted of around a thousand indigenous folks. Sponsor Message It's governed by India but is so distant that it takes a flight from the mainland and a 30-hour ferry ride to arrive.

The Indian government hopes to change all that. Great Nicobar Islanders clean vessels near Campbell Bay. Satish Babu//via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption R.

What Experts Say

Satish Babu//via Getty Images The upcoming Great Nicobar Project is set to transform this sleepy island into a bustling township over the next three decades. Once complete, the island will have a civilian and military airport, a transshipment port that caters to container ships, a power plant and a new town equipped to host a million tourists a year — nearly 100 times its current population. The project will cover an area twice the size of Manhattan, and potentially feature high rises, discos, even Disneyland-like theme parks.

Environmentalists and critics have a list of concerns. They say farms, beaches and hills will be swallowed up and a million trees will be felled. They worry about the impact on endangered animals, like leatherback turtles, largest of all sea turtles, and the Nicobarese pigeon, the closest living relative of the dodo, with its distinctive fluorescent green and orange plume.

The Great Nicobar Project "sounds like an open invitation to disaster," says Manish Chandi, a scholar who has studied the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago for over two decades. "It poses a threat to a huge amount of natural resources, its biological diversity and its indigenous communities. " Chandi argues the purported benefits of the Great Nicobar Infrastructure project reflect a flawed understanding of "development.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.