CANCELLED — Survival Picket in Solidarity with the Dongria Kondh Tribe — Stop Vendanta Mining Orissa, India.

The Don­gria Kondh tribe of India and the land they live in is threat­ened with destruc­tion by the UK com­pa­ny Vedan­ta. Vedan­ta wants to cre­ate a giant open-cast mine on the Don­gria Kond­h’s sacred moun­tain, destroy­ing the lush forests that grow there and pol­lut­ing the rivers. The Don­gria Kond­h’s lives will be com­plete­ly dev­as­tat­ed.

The Sur­vival demon­stra­tion out­side Coutts Bank pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised on this web­site planned for the 10th June has been can­celled. In reac­tion to the planned pick­et Coutts has just informed Sur­vival that they no longer hold shares in Vedan­ta, the British-based com­pa­ny whose planned baux­ite mine will dev­as­tate the lands of Indi­a’s Don­gria Kondh tribe. More info to fol­low.

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WHERE? Out­side Coutts Bank, 440 Strand, Lon­don
WHEN? Tues­day 10th June 2008, 18.45 — 20.00

WHAT IS THE EVENT?

Coutts Bank hold shares in Vedan­ta. When Vedan­ta makes mon­ey, Coutts make mon­ey, so they are prof­it­ing from the abuse of the Don­gria Kondh.

On 10th June Coutts are host­ing the open­ing par­ty of Lon­don Jew­ellery Week, which they are spon­sor­ing. Sur­vival will be there, urg­ing Coutts to with­draw its shares in Vedan­ta, and to recog­nise the rights of the Don­gria Kondh to live inde­pen­dent­ly on their own land.

For direc­tions, please see the fol­low­ing link:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=530188&y=180575&z

Back­ground info:

There are 8,000 Don­gria Kondh liv­ing in the Niyam­giri Hills in Oris­sa, India.

The Niyam­giri Hills are an area of out­stand­ing nat­ur­al beau­ty, rich in wildlife and dense forests. The Don­gria Kondh farm the hill slopes, grow­ing crops in among the for­est and gath­er­ing wild fruit, flow­ers and leaves for sale. Their lifestyle and reli­gion have pro­tect­ed the forests of Niyam­giri for cen­turies.

The top of the moun­tain, which is wor­shiped by the Don­gria Kondh as the seat of their god, has rich deposits of the alu­mini­um ore baux­ite.

The min­ing project would lead to dis­place­ment of thou­sands of trib­al peo­ple and destroy bio­di­ver­si­ty and water sources. Niyam­giri hills are the source of Vamshad­hara Riv­er and major trib­u­taries of Nagaveli rivers – sacred to the Khonds. A large num­ber of wildlife species includ­ing tiger, leop­ards, ele­phant and mouse deer also abode in Niyam­giri hills. Many of these species are endan­gered. In the past, efforts have been made by var­i­ous gov­ern­men­tal and non-gov­ern­men­tal bod­ies to declare Niyam­giri hills as sanc­tu­ary or reserve area to pro­tect its pris­tine nat­ur­al habi­tat.

The local resis­tance against the project start­ed with the land acqui­si­tion process but because of the poor eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal clout of Don­gria Kondhs, their voic­es and con­cerns are ignored by local and state author­i­ties. This is hard­ly sur­pris­ing giv­en the Oris­sa gov­ern­men­t’s thrust on ‘accel­er­at­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment’ by hand­ing over rich nat­ur­al resources to big pri­vate com­pa­nies, both domes­tic and for­eign, for a pit­tance. Pres­sure on the finan­cial back­ers of the scheme in Europe has already result­ed in sig­nif­i­cant dis­in­vest­ment is Nor­way and sim­i­lar action in the UK could real­ly stregth­en the tribes hand.

More Details can be found on the web­site of ‘Sur­vival — The Move­ment For Trib­al Peo­ple’:

http://www.survival-international.org/tribes/dongria