"If every tourist carries just one bottle of mineral water, we'll have 100,000 more plastic bottles bobbing in the sea each year," said Madhu Krishnan, head of the Islanders' Organisation Front, an umbrella of local NGOs.

"This tropical paradise would turn into a garbage bin," Krishnan said in the local capital Port Blair.

The protests came after New Delhi, spurred by a revival of tourism in the island chain following the devastating December 2004 tsunami, decided last week to open 50 new holiday locations.

Krishnan said "a tested waste management system" must be in place before new holiday sites are opened."

Arup Kumar Roy of the group, Healthy Environment and Less Pollution (HELP), warned that the island chain's ecology was already reeling under the pressure of population which has ballooned three-fold to 360,000 in a decade.

In Port Blair, garbage is already a problem with mounds of rubbish taunting picture-perfect bungalows built before World War II.

"More tourism means more damage to the ecology and besides there is no concrete plan related to transportation," said the HELP chief.

Before the tsunami struck, more than 90,000 people visited annually the 10 Andaman islands that have so far been opened to tourism.

But after the towering waves which killed 3,000 people on the islands and left another 5,500 still listed as missing, the number of tourists shrank to 20,000 tourists in 2005 -- nearly all Indians.

This year, however, tourism has bounced back. Between January and July almost 52,000 tourist arrivals were recorded in the archipelago of which only 36 of the 550 islands are inhabited, some by stone-age tribes.

Among the sites earmarked for opening is Interview Island which boasts of wild elephants, Andamans tourism chief Dharam Pal said. Another is Baratang, close to where the near-extinct Jarawa tribe dwells.

"Regular boat services would be offered to these new sites," Pal said, adding India also plans to offer virgin locations on the golden-beached Cinque island for Bollywood producers to shoot films.

Pal dismissed the warnings of environmental groups.

The administration would not allow any damage to the emerald-green sea or the exotic islands which are closer to Indonesia than India, he said.

"These sites have been selected so that environmentally-sensitive hotels and beach resorts can be set up under our tourism plan," he said.

"We're ready to discuss issues with environmentalists and we would go in planned manner considering our delicate ecology," Pal added.

But Jose Louies of the conservation group SOS called for caution.

"An environment impact assessment should be carried out by an independent body before talking of opening new locations," Louies said.

Andaman's chief forest conservator and official environmental monitor S.R. Mehta added that "to my knowledge there is no plan for solid waste management in this island, not even for tourism."

Many Andamanese said they wished the tourist hordes would stay away.

One pointed to litter created by Israelis visiting Havelock, an island ringed by exotic coral reefs.

"Look at how these Israelis have littered Havelock with condoms and plastic," said hotelier D. Gopalan.

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