New Delhi: In a significant order, the Supreme Court banned the felling of trees from naturally grown forests in the Andaman and Nicobar islands on October 10,2001 and asked the authorities for a response to the order.

The order was passed in an Interlocutory Application filed by the environmental action group Kalpavriksh along with the Port Blair based Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology (SANE) and the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). (IA No. 502 in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 202 / 1995 [TN Godavarman Thirumulpad Vs. Union of India and others].

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are an internationally renowned hotspot of biological diversity, which has been increasingly threatened. Importantly, these islands are also home to indigenous tribal communities like the Onge, Jarawa, Sentinelese, and the Shompens who critically depend on the forests for their survival and whose very existence was being threatened with the logging activities and loss of forest cover here.

Earlier these three organisations had filed a writ petition before the bench of the Calcutta High Court in Port Blair to stop the deforestation being carried out in the island of Little Andaman and the threat this posed to the Onge tribal community that lives on this island. The intervention in the Supreme Court was filed in this matter following an order of the Calcutta High Court dated August 31, 1999 urging the petitioners to draw the attention of the Supreme Court to the matter WTI has been providing financial assistance to Kalpavriksh to fight this case.