Hard choices in the Andaman Islands in The Nikkei Asian Review

My latest for The Nikkei Asian Review on the plight of the indigenous people of the Andaman Islands in India – The world should reconsider forced assimilation of isolated communities. In late November, an American missionary attempted to bring Christianity to the Sentinelese people, a remote community in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian […]

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Andaman minority turned into tourist circus for rich Indians! Again.

British newspaper The Guardian reports that the Jarawa, a tribe of Andaman Islanders who number just a few hundred, have been coerced by Indian police to dance naked for tourist ‘safaris’. Unfortunately, this has been going on for many, many years. When I visited the Andamans in 1997 and 2000, Indian VIPs, speak politicians and […]

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From the Archives: The Sea Gypsies of the Andaman Sea – A British Library Project

When I first traveled around Asia in the early 1990s, I collaborated with the British Library on a long term recording project of indigenous music from the region. Hundreds of hours of recordings from Pakistan to the Philippines resulted from these travels and they are now deposited with the British Library’s International Music Collection part […]

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From the Archives: Tom Vater’s On the Trail with the Bush Meat Hunters republished

Until very recently the markets of Muang Singh, Luang Nam Tha, Phonsavan and Vang Viang were teeming with live and dead forest animals. Squirrels, civet cats, forest rats, bats, beavers, porcupine and their close relative the ‘sinhawn’ as well as an enormous variety of birds including owls and pheasants were offered from market stalls all […]

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Savants of the Sea Engulfed by Politics – Thailand’s Sea Nomads’ Post-Tsunami challenges

The Moken sea gypsies, a small indigenous fishing community in Thailand, relied on their deep knowledge of the sea to save the lives of tourists and locals when the giant tsunami that devastated coastal communities in South Asia swept across their islands. Yet the Moken are facing stark choices in the aftermath of the catastrophe, […]

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