New panel to study Vedanta mine impact on tribals
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COMMENTS 
The Dongria Kondhs of Lanjigarh in Orissa may have got some respite with the Ministry of Environment and Forests setting up another committee to reconsider how the proposed Vedanta mine in the area could affect the tribe
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s office has written to the Ministry of Environment and Forests urging it to clear Vedanta’s proposed Niyamgiri mine in Orissa. The project cannot go ahead without final clearance from the ministry, which, on June 30, 2010, appointed yet another expert committee to carry out further investigations.
Media reports indicate that the experts will be submitting their findings within a month and that the environment ministry is likely to announce its decision around the time of Vedanta’s AGM in London on July 28. Till then, Vedanta Alumina’s plans to source bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa’s Kalahandi district will have to wait.
An earlier team of experts commissioned by the environment ministry to investigate Vedanta’s plans warned that the mine was likely to have a devastating effect on Dongria Kondh tribals living in the area. In fact, the latest committee was set up as a follow-up to concerns raised by a three-member committee that submitted its report after site inspections in January and February 2010.
The report on violations of the Forest Conservation Act was prepared by the Chief Conservator of Forests (central) J K Tewari. Former Additional Director General (wildlife) at the Wildlife Institute of India, Vinod Rishi, made out the report on the project’s impact on local wildlife. The study on the impact on local populations was carried out by Usha Ramanathan, an independent legal researcher.
Tewari and Rishi’s reports gave the project a clean chit; Ramanathan was the only member of the team who argued against the project. She questioned the Orissa state government’s claim that the Forest Rights Act had been fully implemented. The report gave clear warning that the project would destroy the local Dongria Kondh tribe. According to Ramanathan, the 7,000-odd strong tribal group would not be able to make the transition from a forest-based lifestyle to one that would be necessary should the mining project take off.
The new expert committee, headed by National Advisory Council member N C Saxena, will now examine, apart from the diversion of land which comes under the Forest Conservation Act 1980, issues of settlement of rights under the Forest Rights Act 2006. Of particular importance will be the “specific impact on the livelihood, culture and material welfare of the Dongria Kondhs, a notified primitive tribal group,” a ministry release says.
The committee will also consider the project’s impact on wildlife and biodiversity in the surrounding areas.
The decision to withhold final clearance is in line with the environment ministry’s July 2009 circular, stating: ‘State/UT governments, where process of settlement of rights under the Forest Rights Act is yet to begin, are required to enclose evidences supporting that settlement of rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 will be initiated and completed before the final approval for the proposals.’
This stance came under attack from the prime minister’s office and the company’s spokespersons, who argued that the environment ministry’s jurisdiction was limited to forest and wildlife matters. The project was given ‘in-principle’ clearance in 2008 by Jairam Ramesh’s predecessor.
Ramesh, who has been objecting to the concept of in-principle clearance, has told Parliament that “had the Tribal Act been in place, the chances are that this project (Vedanta) would not have been cleared in the first place”. In the past, he has repeatedly stressed that the project would be given forest clearance only after the issue of tribal rights had been settled.
A number of international NGOs have taken up the cause of the tribe, which claims that the mine will desecrate its holy mountain and cause disruptions to its way of life in the Niyamgiri hills.
Survival International’s director Stephen Corry, said: “The prime minister ought to be protecting the rights of India’s most vulnerable citizens, not helping to railroad through a project that government experts have warned could destroy them.” A Dongria Kondh man told Survival: “Mining only makes profit for the rich. We will become beggars if the company destroys our mountain and our forest so that they can make money.”
Last year the UK government condemned Vedanta, declaring that it “did not respect the rights of the Dongria Kondh” and that a “change in the company’s behaviour (is) essential”. The Church of England, the Norwegian government and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust are among the high-profile investors that have sold their Vedanta shares over serious human rights concerns.
Source: The Hindu, July 1, 2010
The Economic Times, July 1, 2010
ANI, June 30, 2010