India, Feb. 18 -- The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has declined to interfere any further in the environmental review of the Great Nicobar Holistic Development Project, in the process greenlighting the Rs.81,834.22 crore project. It has accepted the Centre's case that the project is strategically important and that Greater Nicobar, situated a thousand miles off the Indian mainland, offers a strategic location to develop a new economic hub. The project will help improve connectivity with the Indian mainland and other global cities, the government contends. These are contentious claims that deserved more attention from NGT. The larger question is whether NGT delivered on its remit. The NGT Act 2010 states that it is a law for the effective and expeditious disposal of cases related to environmental protection, conservation of forests and other natural resources, including enforcement of any legal right relating to the environment. National security, trade and connectivity are not its concerns. That being the case, NGT should have focused on the core issue at hand - the impact of the project on biodiversity, environment and vulnerable tribes - and taken an uncompromising view of the project. It didn't do that. Not surprisingly, its final order agrees with the government's submission. For instance, it has blithely accepted Zoological Survey of India's submission that there is no major coral reef within the work area of the project, and scattered ones only in the adjoining areas of the proposed project site. And it has also accepted the government's position that the site where the project is planned does not qualify as a most vulnerable one under Coastal Regulation Zone norms - despite it being the nesting ground for an endangered species of sea turtle, and an endemic and endangered bird. The big picture is this: The project involves the loss of 130.75 sq km of forests, and 84.10 sq km of that is tribal land. For the Shompen, a particularly vulnerable tribal group, these rainforests are a foraging ground mainly for food. The Nicobarese, another resident tribe, have said that they have not consented to the acquisition of their commons. To be sure, every large project - economic or strategic - entails some trade-offs. But what if the survival of multiple species and the way of life of particularly vulnerable tribes are at stake? The project comprises an international container transshipment terminal, an airport, a power plant and a township, and the jury is still out on whether the project is economically viable. However, the loss of biodiversity in this case extracts a cost that cannot be compensated. The least NGT could have done is give the applications before it a patient and thorough hearing....