“There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road.”
So begins my favorite book, The Underneath. A small cat has been abandoned by her family on the side of the road, most likely because she is pregnant. She follows the voice of a hound dog, who has been chained to his house and abused by his owner, Gar Face, for many years. The cat has her babies underneath this house, and despite Gar Face, she, her kittens and the dog become a family.
The kittens are told from very young that they cannot go out from underneath the porch, because if Gar Face sees them, he will use them as alligator bait. But kittens are curious and like to explore. When one of them leaves, he sets off a large chain of events and a ancient, vengeful snake is released from beneath the earth.
The Underneath was written by Kathi Appelt in 2008, with drawings by David Small. It takes place in the bayou, a swamp, on the border of Texas and Louisiana. It’s partially based off of Native American legends. This book is not action packed. Most of the book consists of backstory, which could be boring for some readers. There are many stories in the book. There is that of Grandmother Moccasin, that of the Alligator, that of Gar Face, that of the forest, and of course that of the Ranger, the dog, and the nameless cat and her kittens, Puck and Sabine. All of these stories converge when Puck leaves the Underneath. However, the book is poetically written and the book is like a beautiful cloth, brilliantly woven together. The plot is quite violent in some parts, but none of it is too graphic. Throughout the book, there is a constant theme that says that revenge is not the answer, that hatred poisons, while love heals.
This is my favorite book because of the way it is so eloquently and poetically written. I first read it three or four years ago, so perhaps it might be a bit too young for me now. I love the way all of the stories weave together like a cloth. The book has a very dark, threatening tone to it, but there is always hope that shines through anyway.
Has my post convinced you to read this book? Does it sound interesting to you? If you’ve read it, what did you think of it? Let me know in the comments!
The Jarawa tribe live on the Andaman Islands in India. They are a hunter-gatherer society, and wish to remain isolated (Survival International, n.d.). Thousands of years ago, they migrated to India from Africa. Currently, there are only around 400 of them left. They are mainly threatened by tourists who give them food, spread diseases and abuse them. Some of the local police allow and partake in this, by charging tourists to take them on human safaris, which they are able to do because of the Great Andaman Trunk Road. To preserve the Jarawa, we must reroute the road to the coast of the Andaman Islands instead of having it go straight through the middle of their reserve.
There are a number of threats to the Jarawa tribe. In fact, the Jarawa face threats from four different aspects of survival: natural, economic, political and social. I have done my best to solve all of the threats, and I will explain all of these threats and their solutions in detail.
Poachers Are Taking Away Their Food
The natural threat to the Jarawa is that the Great Andaman Trunk Road allows poachers to easily sneak in and out and hunt the game that the Jarawa need to survive (Survival International, n.d.). This is a problem, as the Jarawa could begin to starve, which will either make them die out or seek food from tourists, which could cause them to get diseases or abandon their tribe.
Human Safaris
The social threat is that tourists driving on the Andaman Road are charged by some of the police officers to go on ‘human safaris’, where the tourists and the police try to find and interact with the Jarawa (Survival International, n.d.). When the tourists and the police contact the Jarawa, the Jarawa often get food, drugs and/or alcohol, and abuse. The tourists can also transmit diseases unknown to the Jarawa such as measles. “In 1999 and 2006, the Jarawa suffered outbreaks of measles – a disease that has wiped out many tribes worldwide following contact with outsiders. An epidemic could devastate the tribe.”(Survival International, n.d.).
300$
There isn’t really a strong economic threat, but the local police charge up to 300$ to give these tours (Mazower, 2013), so there is incentive to give the human safaris.
Breaking the Law
Figure 2: Sign on Andaman Road
This is a photo of a sign on the Andaman Road. As you can see from the photo, it is not allowed to interact with the Jarawa or give them food, and the police can punish tourists for doing either of these, but because of the economic incentive, some of the police break these laws for personal gain.
The Police Are Disobedient
This is where it gets complicated. In 2013, the Indian supreme court ruled for tourists to be forbidden to travel along the Andaman Road for seven weeks, but the local authorities changed their rules in order to allow human safaris to continue. The supreme court had to reverse the ban (Survival International, n.d.).
So what can we do?
I have come up with three solutions in order to address all of these threats. I’ll go through them one at a time:
Crack Down on Poachers
The first and probably the easiest solution is to increase the certainty that a poacher will be punished if they are caught. Surivival International said that “Although in recent years many poachers have been arrested, none have been been sentenced by the courts, despite the offence carrying a prison term of up to seven years.” A bigger punishment serves no purpose if it is not recieved. “Research to date generally indicates that increases in the certainty of punishment, as opposed to the severity of punishment, are more likely to produce deterrent benefits.”(Wright, 2010). What this means is that if we begin to punish poachers more and more consistently, the poachers will be less likely to threaten the Jarawa.
Reroute the Great Andaman Trunk Road!
Figure 1: Map of Andaman Islands
Currently, the Great Andaman Trunk Road goes straight through the Jarawa reserve. What I would propose is that the road should be rerouted to the coast in North and Middle Andaman. There would be one small part where it would overlap with the reserve, but it would generally keep tourists out of the area. The police would be less likely to take the Jarawa on human safaris because it would be much more difficult. It would also increase the risk of a poacher getting caught, because the poachers would have to walk farther with their game to get back to the road.
It is imperative that we take this step as soon as possible, as an outbreak of disease from the poachers or tourists could wipe out the Jarawa. That’s why in order to reroute the road, the Indian government would borrow the money from the bank. To pay back the bank, the government could use money from a tax on tourism.
Year
Gross State Domestic Product (In Millions of Rupees)
1985
590
1990
1,100
1995
4,000
2000
7,750
2005
10,560
2010
16,130
What this table (Figure 3) tells us is that in 2010, the gross state domestic product was the equivalent of 237’649’903 USD. The majority of this came from tourism (National Accounts Division, n.d.). The tourism industry has been expanding rapidly. In 2012, the number of tourists had doubled since 2008 (IANS, 2014). Because this could cause prices to go up a bit, there would be a campaign which lets tourists know what they are supporting if they travel to the Andaman Islands. When done correctly, the forms of tourism that involve being in nature are fairly sustainable. For example, in diving, a good diver takes only pictures and leaves only bubbles. It may take a few years, but I believe that the Indian government would be able to pay off the bank it chooses to borrow money from. Here is some extra reading on sustainable tourism in Andaman.
My final solution would also be funded by tourism. In India, there would be a campaign to raise awareness for the Jarawa, to show that the Jarawa should not be integrated into modern society if they do not want to be.
In conclusion, the Jarawa are threatened mostly by tourism and poaching, and we can save them by rerouting the Andaman Trunk Road and making sure that the poachers get punished for their actions.
So What?
Figure 4: Mojave Desert in Southwest USA
Why does this matter to us? It matters for a couple of reasons. The first is my opinion, but we lived in tribal societies for thousands of years. If all of human existence was a day, modern society would have only been the last hour. They are humans, just like we are. Do we not have a responsiblity to protect our own kind? For those of you don’t agree with this, think of this: The climate on our planet is changing rapidly. Whether you believe it is from global warming or not, it is changing. The earth is getting hotter, and populations are skyrocketing. The ice caps will melt, which will cause sea levels to rise. Deserts are expanding and fields are being flooded by the more and more frequent storms. It’s possible that in the future, agriculture will become impossible in some places, and humans will have to return to a hunter gatherer society. We must learn everything we can about this livestyle from tribal peoples, in order to survive as a human race later on.
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