Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve

About Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve

Great Nicobar is the southernmost island of the Nicobar Islands Archipelago.
The Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve encompasses a large part (some 85%) of the island of Great Nicobar, the largest of the Nicobar Islands in the Indian Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Nicobars lie in the Bay of Bengal, eastern Indian Ocean, 190 km to the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
The Reserve has a total core area of approximately 885 km2, surrounded by a 12 km-wide “forest buffer zone”.
It covers 103 870 hectares of unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems.
In 2013 it was included in the list of Man and Biosphere programs of UNESCO to promote sustainable development based on local community effort and sound science.

Geography

The Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve harbours a wide spectrum of ecosystems comprising tropical wet evergreen forests, mountain ranges reaching a height of 642 m (Mt. Thullier) above sea level, and coastal plains.
It incorporates two National parks of India, which were gazetted in 1992: the larger Campbell Bay National Park on the northern part of the island, and Galathea National Park in the southern interior.
The non-Biosphere portions of the island (set aside for agriculture, forestry and settlements) are confined to the southwestern and southeastern coastal reaches.
The environment is classified by the World Wide Fund for Nature as Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, and located in the Indomalayan realm.

Indigenous inhabitants

The Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve also incorporates territories and traditional lands of the indigenous Nicobarese and Shompen peoples.

Flora

It houses 650 species of angiosperms, ferns, gymnosperms, bryophytes and lichens among others.
The tract is rich in plant diversity and fosters a number of rare and endemic species, including Cyathea albosetacea (tree fern) and Phalaenopsis speciosa (orchid).

Fauna

In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area.
A total of 14 species of mammals, 71 species of birds, 26 species of reptiles, 10 species of amphibians and 113 species of fish have been reported.
The region also harbours a large number of endemic and endangered species of fauna. To date, 11 species of mammals, 32 species of birds, 7 species of reptiles and 4 species of amphibians have been found to be endemic.
Of these, the well-known Crab-eating Macaque, Nicobar Tree Shrew, Dugong, Nicobar Megapode, Serpent Eagle, saltwater crocodile, marine turtles and Reticulated Python are endemic and/or endangered.