News from Survival International

Tribal people appeal to James Cameron

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Survival's appeal to James Cameron appears today in Variety magazine.
© Survival

Survival has appealed to Avatar director James Cameron on behalf of an Indian tribe through an ad in the film industry magazine Variety (published today 8 February 2010).

In the ad Survival asks Mr Cameron to help the Dongria Kondh tribe of Orissa, India, whose story is uncannily similar to that of the Na’vi in Avatar. The ad says:

Appeal to James Cameron

Avatar is fantasy .. and real.

The Dongria Kondh tribe in India are struggling to defend their land against a mining company hell-bent on destroying their sacred mountain.

Please help the Dongria.

We’ve watched your film – now watch ours:

www.survivalinternational.org/films/mine

Survival’s ten-minute film ‘Mine: story of a sacred mountain’ - narrated by Joanna Lumley - exposes the Dongria’s plight.

The Dongria live in the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa state, India. British FTSE-100 company Vedanta Resources is determined to mine their sacred mountain’s rich seam of bauxite (aluminium ore). Vedanta is majority-owned by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal.

The Dongria and other local Kondh people are resisting Vedanta, and are determined to save Niyamgiri from becoming an industrial wasteland. Other Kondh groups are already suffering from a bauxite refinery, built and operated by Vedanta, at the base of the Niyamgiri Hills.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry says, ‘Just as the Na’vi describe the forest of Pandora as ‘their everything’, for the Dongria Kondh, life and land have always been deeply connected. The fundamental story of Avatar – if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids – is being played out today in the hills of Niyamgiri in Orissa, India.

’Like the Na’vi of ‘Avatar’, the Dongria Kondh are also at risk, as their lands are set to be mined by Vedanta Resources who will stop at nothing to achieve their aims. The mine will destroy the forests on which the Dongria Kondh depend and wreck the lives of thousands of other Kondh tribal people living in the area.

‘I do hope that James Cameron will join the Dongria’s struggle to save their sacred mountain and secure their future.’

Church takes 'unprecedented' step to sell stake in Vedanta

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:06:00 +0000

Vedanta's planned mine in Orissa, India, has become hugely controversial.
© Survival

In a shock move, the Church of England decided today to disinvest from controversial miner Vedanta Resources on ethical grounds, dealing a devastating blow to the company’s credibility.

The Church stated that ‘we are not satisfied that Vedanta has shown, or is likely in future to show, the level of respect for human rights and local communities that we expect…’ adding that maintaining investments in Vedanta ‘would be inconsistent with the Church investing bodies’ joint ethical investment policy’.

The Church’s decision is extremely unusual, as it almost always prefers a policy of ‘constructive engagement’ to disinvesting, and is just the latest in a string of PR disasters for the company. Survival International has been lobbying the Church to disinvest from Vedanta for over a year.

Last year the FTSE 100 company was publicly rebuked by the British Government for failing to respect the human rights of India’s Dongria Kondh tribe, in a similarly unprecedented move. The government said that ‘a change in the company’s behaviour’ was ‘essential’.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘The Church’s unprecedented and very welcome decision sends a strong signal to companies that trample on tribal peoples’ rights: we will not bankroll your abuses. Anybody that has shares in Vedanta should sell them today if they care about human rights.’

The Church is not the first organisation to disinvest from Vedanta on ethical grounds. In 2007 the Norwegian government sold its US$13m stake , saying ‘there is little reason to believe that the company’s unacceptable practice will change in the future.’

In addition, Martin Currie Investments sold their £2.3 million stake last year, and BP’s pension fund reduced its holdings in Vedanta due to ‘concerns about the way the company operates.’

Uncontacted tribes’ land: ‘most biodiverse’ in South America and threatened by oil

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:58:00 +0000

Crossed spears left by an uncontacted tribe in Peru where Perenco and Repsol YPF are working.
© Marek Wolodzko/Survival

New research by scientists has found that a vast region of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon is the most biodiverse in South America.

But this region, home to some of the world’s last uncontacted tribes, is gravely threatened by oil exploration and drilling.

The research, published in PLoS ONE, found parts of eastern Ecuador and northern Peru to be uniquely rich in amphibians, birds, mammals and plants. But the scientists also say that oil companies are working, or due to work, in a massive 79% of the region.

‘Unfortunately, the most biodiverse area in South America is included in oil lots 39, 67, 121, 123 and 129,’ says Dr Matt Finer from Save America’s Forests, one of the authors of the report.

Repsol-YPF is working in Lot 39 and Perenco in Lots 67 and 121. Perenco has already discovered vast oil deposits, but Repsol is still exploring.

‘These findings form the scientific basis for policy recommendations, including stopping any new oil activities and road construction in Yasuní (in Ecuador) and creating areas off-limits to large-scale development in adjacent northern Peru,’ says the report.

Peru’s national Amazon indigenous organisation, AIDESEP, has appealed to Peru’s courts to stop oil work in the region. It has also filed a complaint with Latin America’s top human rights body, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Extinct: Andaman tribe’s extermination complete as last member dies

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:50:00 +0000

Boa Sr was the last member of the Bo tribe.
© Alok Das

The last member of a unique tribe has died on India’s Andaman Islands.

Boa Sr, who died last week aged around 85, was the last speaker of ‘Bo’, one of the ten Great Andamanese languages. The Bo are thought to have lived in the Andaman Islands for as much as 65,000 years, making them the descendants of one of the oldest human cultures on Earth.

Boa Sr was the oldest of the Great Andamanese, who now number just 52. Originally ten distinct tribes, the Great Andamanese were 5,000 strong when the British colonized the Andaman Islands in 1858. Most were killed or died of diseases brought by the colonizers.

Having failed to ‘pacify’ the tribes through violence, the British tried to ‘civilize’ them by capturing many and keeping them in an ‘Andaman Home’. Of the 150 children born in the home, none lived beyond the age of two.

The surviving Great Andamanese depend largely on the Indian government for food and shelter, and abuse of alcohol is rife.

Boa Sr survived the Asian tsunami of December 2004, and told linguists, ‘We were all there when the earthquake came. The eldest told us ‘the Earth would part, don’t run away or move’. The elders told us, that’s how we know.’

Linguist Prof. Anvita Abbi, who knew Boa Sr for many years, said, ‘Since she was the only speaker of [Bo] she was very lonely as she had no one to converse with… Boa Sr. had a very good sense of humour and her smile and full throated laughter were infectious.’

‘You cannot imagine the pain and anguish that I spend each day in being a mute witness to the loss of a remarkable culture and unique language.’

Boa Sr told Abbi she felt the neighbouring Jarawa tribe, who have not been decimated, were lucky to live in their forest away from the settlers who now occupy much of the Islands.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘The Great Andamanese were first massacred, then all but wiped out by paternalistic policies which left them ravaged by epidemics of disease, and robbed of their land and independence.

‘With the death of Boa Sr and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory. Boa’s loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands.’

Listen to Boa Sr singing in Bo:

Last of the Bo tribe dies

Boa Sr, the last member of the Bo tribe, sings.

Brazil grants license for controversial Amazon mega-dam

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:13:00 +0000

Kayapó dance at an anti-dam protest in 2006
© T Turner

The Brazilian government has granted an environmental license for the construction of the controversial Belo Monte hydro-electric dam in the Amazon.

The dam, planned for the Xingu River in the northern state of Pará, will be the third largest in the world and is estimated to cost $17 billion.

It will flood 500 square kilometers of land, causing huge devastation to the rainforest, and have a major impact on fish stocks.

The livelihoods of thousands of tribal people who depend on the forest and river for food and water will be destroyed. Some face removal from their ancestral land.

Indigenous peoples are at the forefront of current protests. Last October Kayapó Indians and Indians of other tribes held a week-long protest against the dam.

In a letter to President Lula the Kayapó said ‘We don’t want this dam to destroy the ecosystems and the biodiversity that we have taken care of for millenia and which we can still preserve’.

The Bishop of the Xingu, Dom Erwin Krautler, also opposes the dam and warned that the Indians could resort to violence if their voice is not heard. ‘They will cry, they will shout, they will rise up’, he said.

Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office is calling for the license to be canceled, stating that the environmental impact studies were incomplete, and that the Indians and other people who will be affected were not properly consulted.

Previous attempts to build the dam in the1980s failed following worldwide protests led by Kayapó Indians.

Dam building is a central part of Brazil’s Accelerated Growth Programme, which aims to stimulate the country’s economic growth by building a vast infrastructure of roads and dams, mainly in the Amazon region.

There was huge pressure on ministers to grant the license for the Belo Monte dam, which caused division and resignations within the government’s environment agency IBAMA.

Survival has protested to the government about the project.

Protestors gather at Tiffany stores worldwide

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:06:00 +0000

Protestors outside Tiffany's store in London
© Marc Cowan/Survival

Survival supporters demonstrated today outside Tiffany stores in London, San Francisco, Madrid, Paris and Berlin to protest at the company funding water boreholes for game animals on Bushman land where the people are forbidden access to their own borehole.

The protestors handed in a letter at their respective stores asking Tiffany to withdraw its financial support for the boreholes.

Bushman spokesman, Jumanda Gakelebone, said, ‘Tiffany is supporting the government but ignoring the Bushmen. It should not be giving money to the government while we don’t have any water. Its money is being used to oppress us. This is our land and we love it.’

Survival supporters demonstrated to start a campaign calling on the company to withdraw from cooperating with the government until the Bushmen are allowed to exercise their right to water.

Pictures available here:

Protestors outside Tiffany's store, London
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Credit: © Survival

Protestors outside Tiffany's store in London
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Credit: © Marc Cowan/Survival

Protestors outside Tiffany's store, London
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Credit: © Marc Cowan/Survival

Protestors outside Tiffany's store in London
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Credit: © Marc Cowan/Survival

Tribe sights uncontacted Amazon Indians

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:19:00 +0000

Awá children, Brazil. The confirmation of the existence of the Indians near to the Katukina tribe comes just after confirmation of a group of uncontacted Awá Indians in the eastern Amazon.
© Fiona Watson/Survival

A previously unknown Indian tribe has been spotted in the south-western Amazon.

The group, who were encountered by members of a neighboring tribe known as the Katukina, were apparently short, long-haired, and had painted their bodies with urucum [red annatto] dye.

The Katukina said that the uncontacted Indians were not aggressive and that they tried to communicate verbally. ‘We could understand everything’, one Katukina called Carnaval said.

Having received consistent accounts from various Katukina Indians of signs of the uncontacted Indians, FUNAI, Brazil’s Indian Affairs Agency, has decided to mount an expedition to the Rio Biá indigenous territory to search for and record traces of the uncontacted Indians in order to protect them from outsiders.

Non-Indians pass through the area where the uncontacted Indians are believed to live, and it is close to an illegal airstrip, possibly used by drug traffickers.

It is feared that outsiders in the area could pass on diseases to the uncontacted Indians, to which they have little immunity. Past occasions of first contact with Indians have led to many dying from illnesses such as flu.

Demonstrations in Kenya against Ethiopian dam

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:02:45 +0000

The Mursi in Ethiopia will be severely affected by the dam.
© Marco Trovato/Survival

Demonstrators have protested in four towns in Kenya, against the construction of a controversial dam that threatens the survival of a hundred thousand indigenous people throughout the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia and around Lake Turkana in Kenya.

Ethiopia’s Omo River is a lifeline for various tribes, who cultivate crops on the fertile floodplains in an otherwise challenging environment. The river is the largest source for Kenya’s famous Lake Turkana, the most saline of Africa’s large lakes, essential to the survival of many Kenyan tribes. The Lower Omo Valley and Lake Turkana are both UNESCO World Heritage sites, in recognition of the ‘exceptional’ conditions there.

Friends of Lake Turkana organised the simultaneous demonstrations, but had to hold a press conference in Nairobi, because of a ban on public demonstrations in the capital.

A FoLT representative said, ‘Based on research and advice from environmentalists, we the Friends of Lake Turkana (FoLT) are concerned about the drastic two year infilling of the dam as well as the limited amount of water to be let out into Lake Turkana to maintain ecological needs.’

In Ethiopia it is much harder for people to demonstrate against the project. The government has introduced legislation to stop local organisations from working on human rights, democracy, justice and law issues. Most people know virtually nothing about the dam and its impacts.

The Italian company Salini Construttori has already built one third of the dam, called Gibe III. The Italian government and various multinational banks are now considering funding the project.

However, independent experts say it will disrupt the seasonal flooding of the Lower Omo Valley, decimating the forests around the river and making it almost impossible for the tribes of the valley to grow their crops.

Several NGOs have made formal complaints to the Africa Development Bank urging it not to fund the dam.

The volume of water flowing in to Lake Turkana is likely to fall dramatically. Tribes including the Turkana, Dassanech, Rendille and Samburu rely on lakeside livestock grazing, crop cultivation, as well as fishing in the lake itself.

Survival is calling on the Ethiopian government to freeze the dam project until an independent environmental and social impact assessment has been carried out and the Omo Valley tribes have been properly consulted.

Tiffany's target of global Survival protest

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:20:00 +0000

Survival supporters will demonstrate tomorrow (3 February) outside Tiffany stores in five countries to protest at the company funding water boreholes for game animals on Bushman land where the people are forbidden access to their own borehole.

In 2006, Botswana’s High Court ruled that the government’s eviction of the Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve four years earlier was illegal and that the Bushmen had the right to live in their reserve. However, the government has still tried to stop them returning to their ancestral land. It says they cannot use – even at their own expense – a borehole which it deliberately cut off, forcing them to make a 300 mile round trip to fetch water from outside the reserve. At least one Bushman has died from dehydration since the borehole was cut off.

Botswana’s Director of Wildlife and National Parks, Trevor Mmopelwa, has made it clear that the new boreholes must not be used by the Bushmen, defying the high court by saying the reserve ‘should be reserved for wildlife’. As well as drilling new boreholes, the government has also allowed a new tourist lodge, complete with swimming pool and a supposed ‘Bushman experience’, in the reserve.

Survival supporters will demonstrate outside Tiffany stores in London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid and San Francisco, to start a campaign calling on the company to withdraw from cooperating with the government until the Bushmen are allowed to exercise their right to water.

Bushman spokesman, Jumanda Gakelebone, said today, ‘Tiffany is supporting the government but ignoring the Bushmen. It should not be giving money to the government while we don’t have any water. Its money is being used to oppress us. This is our land and we love it.’

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘This is a very well-known case. The Botswana government has been proven to be acting in breach of its own laws and constitution in its efforts to destroy the only remaining hunting Bushmen in southern Africa. Tiffany must know this. Foreign companies should not be supporting it so long as it favours animals to the country’s original inhabitants.’

Penan feature in Eden Project oil palm exhibit

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:56 +0000

A new exhibit at the world famous UK visitor attraction the Eden Project features the Penan of Sarawak and the destruction of their forests to make way for oil palm plantations.

The oil palm exhibit in the Eden Project’s hugely popular Rainforest Biome includes a quote from a Penan man whose community is trying to stop oil palm companies moving on to their land:

‘The oil palm plantation companies – they destroy the forest. They will destroy our natural habitat and that is the only source of food for the Penan. I wish that the government would stop doing this type of ‘development’, as they call it.’

Last year Survival visited Penan communities whose forests had been cleared and their land planted with oil palm by the company Shin Yang. One Penan man told researchers, ‘When the logging started, we thought we had a big problem. But when oil palm arrived, logging was relegated to problem number two! Our land and our forests have been taken by force. Our fruit trees are gone, our hunting grounds are very limited, and the rivers are polluted.’

Another group of Penan have told researchers, ‘Oil palm plantations have not benefited us at all; they have only robbed us of our resources and land… oil palm plantations have destroyed our source of livelihood and made us much poorer. A lot of people are hungry every day because our forest has been destroyed.’

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Just like the logging companies that precede them, the oil palm companies are taking the Penan’s land without their consent and without any consultation. The Malaysian government must stop sanctioning this theft and instead start ensuring that the indigenous people of Sarawak’s land rights are respected.’

An Eden Project spokesperson said, ‘Eden is home to the largest rainforest in captivity… By connecting people to the plants from which everyday products are made Eden hopes to make the survival of the rainforests and other environments more relevant to its visitors.’

The Eden Project is in Cornwall, in the southwest of England. It receives over a million visitors every year.

Imminent: Anglican Church decision on Vedanta Resources' abuses

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:04:00 +0000

The Church of England is meeting this week to decide what to do with its £2.5 million investment in UK mining company Vedanta Resources.

The Ethical Investment Advisory Group of the Church will meet to decide whether to recommend selling their stake in Vedanta Resources, or to keep their money with the miner and continue to ‘engage’ them in dialogue.

The UK government has already declared that Vedanta’s plan to mine aluminium ore from a hill range in Orissa, India, ignores the human rights of the Dongria Kondh tribe who live there, and flouts international law. But the government, which began investigating Vedanta Resources after a complaint from Survival, has no power to stop the company.

Last November a Church representative visited the region of India where Vedanta has already built an alumina refinery and intends to start the mine. During his visit he met people who have lost almost everything to the refinery, and was able to get some sense of what the Dongria Kondh who will be affected by Vedanta’s mine, stand to lose.

The Dongria Kondh tribe have never been formally consulted about the mine, which will destroy their sacred mountain and irrevocably change their forest home. When Survival visited the tribe in December 2009, they found that some Dongria do not even know exactly where the mine is going to be, and no one from Vedanta has ever tried to explain the likely impact on their lives and land.

Stephen Corry, Survival’s Director, said today, ‘If the Church of England now decide to keep their cash with the company it will be in the full knowledge that the Dongria Kondh’s rights are about to be trampled. The UK government has already told Vedanta that the project is unacceptable, but Vedanta has ignored them – it’s painfully clear that words, without action, are meaningless. The Church must take action, and sell its stake in Vedanta Resources.’

HIV reaches Yanomami in Amazon

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:13:10 +0000

Brazil’s National Health Foundation, FUNASA, has confirmed the first case of HIV amongst the Yanomami Indians in northern Brazil.

FUNASA says that there are 28 cases of HIV amongst Indians in the Amazonian state of Roraima, where many Yanomami live. The majority of these cases are women, and two are children.

The Yanomami are one of the largest relatively isolated tribes in South America. Today their population stands at about 32,000 and straddles the border of Venezuela and Brazil.

In 1992, the 9.6 million hectare Yanomami Park was created on the Brazilian side of the border, following the recognition of the Yanomami’s right to live undisturbed on their land. In Venezuela, the Yanomami live in the 8.2 million hectare Alto Orinoco – Casiquiare Biosphere Reserve.

However, the Yanomami still suffer from invasion of their land. Over 1,000 gold-miners are now working illegally in the Yanomami territory, polluting the rivers and forest with mercury, and transmitting deadly diseases like malaria and possibly HIV/AIDS.

Cattle ranchers are also invading and deforesting the eastern fringe of their land.

The Yanomami organization, Hutukara, has made several urgent appeals to the Brazilian authorities to remove all the illegal goldminers and ranchers from their land. So far the government has taken no action.

Survival’s report ‘Progress can kill: how imposed development destroys the health of tribal peoples’ explains that outsiders in tribal peoples’ territories can bring prostitution, the abuse of tribal women and children, and sexual diseases.