Abstract
This chapter is a case study of a local rural system affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The Asian tsunami clearly revealed the vulnerability of coastal communities with respect to dealing with ecological hazards. An area that was greatly affected was the Nicobar Islands, an archipelago belonging to India and located in the Bay of Bengal. Critiquing disaster management and humanitarian aid structures, the chapter considers how an indigenous, subsistence, island community of hunter-gatherers was transformed into an aid-dependent monetary economy embedded in the regional market. Drawing on the concept of social metabolism and transitions, the chapter presents various scenarios of consumption and the consequences these will have on future material and energy demand, land use and time use for the local population. The case reveals the inherent metabolic traps in terms of the islands’ sustainable future, both ecologically and socially, and the role of disaster response in driving them to their biophysical limits as islands in the aftermath.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The theme of the 2014 Global Land Project Open Science Meeting was ‘Land Transformations: Between Global Challenges and Local Realities’, and the theme for the 2014 Ecosystem Services Partnership conference was ‘Local Action for the Common Good’.
- 2.
The Central Nicobars, also known as the Nancowrie group of islands, comprise six islands: Kamorta, Nancowrie, Trinket, Katchal, Chowra and Teressa.
- 3.
Prior to the tsunami, the Nicobarese population in 2001 was 26,565 (Census of India 2001).
- 4.
Copra is desiccated coconut flesh that is dried over fire for several hours. It serves as raw material for the extraction of coconut oil.
- 5.
Singh (2006) provides a detailed account of some of the most common Nicobarese festivals and observances.
- 6.
- 7.
This compares to 1.6 t/cap/year in Campo Bello (a swidden village in Bolivia), 2.6 t/cap/year in Nalang (a subsistence rice cultivating village in Laos) and 3.6 t/cap/year in Sang Saeng (an intensive rice cultivating village in Thailand) (Fischer-Kowalski et al. 2011).
- 8.
The difference between DE and DMC is not the only indication of dependency on trade with other societies. One may find cases where DMI equals DMC if the volume of imports equals that of exports (e.g., exporting cash crops to import fertilizers, machinery and other industrial goods).
- 9.
The total energetic intake of pigs was calculated to be 9.2 GJ (including energy from scavenging), chickens 1.3 GJ, cows 5.4 GJ and goats 0.7 GJ.
- 10.
This compares to 20.6 GJ/cap in Campo Bello, 26.3 GJ/cap in Nalang and 40.5 GJ/cap in Sang Saeng (Fischer-Kowalski et al. 2011).
- 11.
Energetic efficiency is the percentage of useful energy (2.32 GJ) in relation to the DEI (33 GJ).
- 12.
Pigs consume 12.6 times more energy (total feed across their lifetime) than their output to the social system in terms of pork meat.
- 13.
Wildenberg (2005) ran a computer simulation to show that pig festivals on Trinket have a positive effect on the resilience of the local socioecological system as a whole. Removal of the pigs would drastically alter the system.
- 14.
The inefficiency of pig husbandry, along similar methodological concepts, has also been studied by Rappaport (1971) among the Tsembaga population of New Guinea. In addition to the importance of pigs in rituals and in regulating relations between local groups, he discusses ecological reasons for their importance, such as being part of a food chain and converting vegetable carbohydrates into high-quality protein.
- 15.
One Euro equals approximately 70 Indian Rupees.
- 16.
A more detailed analysis of institutional change due to tsunami aid in the Nicobar Islands is described in Ramanujam et al. (2012).
References
Abid, M. (2006). Relief and rehabilitation. Role of civil society organizations. Report submitted to the Andaman and Nicobar Administration.
Aggrawal, S. (2014). Do rural roads create pathways out of poverty? Evidence from India. http://people.ucsc.edu/~saggarw1/
Census of India. (2001/2011). Retrieved from office of the registrar general & census commissioner website, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India: http://www.censusindia.gov.in/
Chakravarti, A. (1994). Andaman and Nicobar: Early history. In: V. Suryanarayan & V. Sudarsen (Eds.), Andaman and Nicobar Islands challenges of development, Vol. III (pp. 20–36). New Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
Donaldson, D. (2010). Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the impact of transportation infrastructure. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working paper 16487. http://www.nber.org/papers/w16487.pdf?new_window=1
Fischer-Kowalski, M.,& Haberl, H. (1997). Tons joules, and money: Modes of production and their sustainability problems. Society and Natural Resources, 10(1997), 61–85.
Fischer-Kowalski, M., Singh, S. J., Ringhofer, L., Grünbühel, C. M., Lauk, C., & Remesch, A. (2011). Socio-metabolic transitions in subsistence communities. Boserup Revisted. In: Human Ecology Review. Vol. 18 (2).
Grünbühel, C. M., Haberl, H., Schandl, H., & Winiwarter, V. (2003). Socio-economic metabolism and colonisation of natural systems in a northeast Thai village: material and energy flows, land use, and cultural change in SangSaeng. Human Ecology, 31(1), 53–86.
Gupta, A. D. (1994). The Andaman-Nicobar Islands in the Trade and Navigation of the Bay of Bengal 1500–1850. In: V. Suryanarayan, & V. Sudarsen, (Eds.), Andaman and Nicobar Islands challenges of development, Vol. IV, (pp. 37–50). New Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
Mehta, L., & Winiwarter, V. (1997). Stoffwechsel in einem indischen Dorf: Fallstudie Merkar. Vienna: IFF Social Ecology (Social Ecology Working Paper 49).
Ramanujam, R. V., Singh, S. J., & Vatn, A. (2012). From the ashes into the fire: Institutional change in the post-tsunami central Nicobar Islands. Society and Natural Resources, 25(11), 1152–1166.
Rappaport, R. A. (1971). The flow of energy in agricultural society. Scientific American, 224(3), 116–132.
Ringhofer, L. (2010). Fishing, foraging and farming in the Bolivian Amazon. On a local society in transition. New York: Springer.
Schandl, H., Hobbes, M., & Kleijn, R. (2006). Local material flow analysis in social context in Tat Hamlet, Northern Mountain Region, Vietnam. IFF Social Ecology (Social Ecology Working Paper 90).
Singh, S. J. (2003). In the Sea of influence: A world system perspective of the Nicobar Islands, Lund studies in human ecology 6. Lund: Lund University Press.
Singh, S. J. (2006). The Nicobar Islands: Cultural choices in the aftermath of the Tsunami. Vienna: Oliver Lehmann, Czernin Verlag.
Singh, S. J., & Grünbühel, C. M. (2003). Environmental relations and biophysical transitions: The case of Trinket Island. Geografiska Annaler (Human Geography), 85B(4), 187–204.
Singh, S. J., Grünbühel, C. M., Schandl, H., & Schulz, N. (2001). Social metabolism and labour in a local context: Changing environmental relations on Trinket Island. Population and Environment, 23(1), 71–104.
Singh, S. J., Ringhofer, L., Haas, W., Krausmann, F., & Fischer-Kowalski, M. (2010). Local studies manual: A researcher’s guide for investigating the social metabolism of rural systems. Vienna: IFF Social Ecology (Social Ecology Working Paper 120).
Thakkar, M. G., & Goyal, B. (2006). Historic submergence and tsunami destruction of Nancowrie, Kamorta, Katchall and Trinket Islands of Nicobar district: Consequences of 26 December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake. Current Science, 90(7), 989–994.
Wildenberg, M. (2005). Ecology, rituals and system-dynamics. An attempt to model the Socio-Ecological System of Trinket Island. Vienna: IFF Social Ecology (Social Ecology Working Paper 80).
Wildenberg, M., & Singh, S. J. (2012). Integrated modelling and scenario building for the Nicobar Islands in the aftermath of the Tsunami. In: Glaser, B. et al. (Eds.), Human/nature interaction in the anthropocene. Potentials for socio-ecological systems analysis. Routledge.
References
Fischer-Kowalski, M., Singh, SJ., Ringhofer, L., Grünbühel, CM., Lauk, Ch., & Remesch, A. (2011). Socio-metabolic transitions in subsistence communities. Boserup Revisted. In: Human Ecology Review. Vol. 18(2).
Ringhofer, L. (2010). Fishing, foraging and farming in the Bolivian Amazon. On a local society in transition. New York: Springer.
Singh, S. J. (2003). In the Sea of influence: A world system perspective of the Nicobar Islands. Lund: Lund University Press.
Singh, S. J., Ringhofer, L., Haas, W., Krausmann, F., Lauk, C. & Fischer-Kowalski, M. (2010). Local studies manual: A researcher’s guide for investigating the social metabolism of rural systems. Social Ecology Working Paper, Vol. 120. Vienna: IFF Social Ecology, 1–69. pp. 1726–3808. http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/socec/downloads/WD120_Web.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Singh, S.J., Haas, W. (2016). Complex Disasters on the Nicobar Islands. In: Haberl, H., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Krausmann, F., Winiwarter, V. (eds) Social Ecology. Human-Environment Interactions, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33326-7_27
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33326-7_27
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33324-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33326-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)