We’re excited to launch our new film ‘Mine: story of a sacred mountain’ today. It’s got some big names attached to it: Joanna Lumley narrates, and there’s music by, amongst others, Skin (formerly of Skunk Anansie) and Robot Club.

But the real stars are, of course, the Dongria Kondh. They are one of India’s most remote and self-sufficient tribes. Their forests, in the Niyamgiri Hills, are spectacular. And they worship Niyam Raja, the God of their sacred mountain.

But if mining giant Vedanta Resources gets its way, they will be sacrificed at the altar of the Gods of ‘progress’. Among Niyamgiri’s riches is bauxite, the raw material for aluminium. Ironically, the very rocks beneath their forests and villages, the lands which have sustained them since the beginning, may be their destruction.

What will the Dongria Kondh do to defend their forests, their way of life and their mountain God? Watch the film. Let the Dongria take you into their lives and their lands. And, please, help them save their mountain.

Extraordinary: Forbes has named Anil Agarwal one of its 2009 ‘Heroes of Philanthropy’.

This, of course, is the same Anil Agarwal who’s head of Vedanta Resources. Vedanta plans to mine India’s Niyamgiri hills, and thereby destroy the remote Dongria Kondh tribe who live on Niyamgiri’s slopes.

To Forbes, from Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry:

Since when did being a ‘hero of philanthropy’ (Forbes, March 4) involve invading a tribe’s sacred hills, destroying the forests they live in and devastating their lives?

That’s what Anil Agarwal, majority owner and chairman of Vedanta Resources, is doing in Orissa, India. His motive is simply profit, but Mr Agarwal’s plans will destroy one of India’s most remote, and self-sufficient, tribes – the Dongria Kondh. If Mr Agarwal were a true philanthropist, he would talk to the people most affected by his company’s massive industrial projects and respect what they want, rather than blithely assume that what is good for his bank balance is also good for the Dongria Kondh – it isn’t.

Stephen Corry
Director, Survival International