by John Perkins, via Yes! Magazine,
It was the kind of fight in which the power seems so one-sided that the conclusion is foregone. The indigenous Dongria Kondh of Niyamgiri, India, saw their homeland and their sacred mountains threatened by Vedanta Resources, an international mining company that planned to build an enormous bauxite mine in the heart of their land. The Dongria used themselves as roadblocks to keep Vedanta employees away, but it was hard to imagine that their resistance would have long-term effects.
But as word of their struggle spread, so did the resistance to the mine: Celebrities took up the cause, and shareholders from major firms to the Church of England and the Norwegian government withdrew their investments from Vedanta. The Indian government began to take a closer look at the project.
Last week, the government withdrew its permission from the mining proposal. The Indian environment ministry also accused a Vedanta subsidiary of violating conservation and environmental regulations. In reaction to this news, Vedanta stock plummeted almost 6 percent.
Improbable Victories
The Vedanta decision is just the most recent of many seemingly improbable victories by indigenous and environmental groups around the planet. Collective actions by ordinary people—increasingly aided by sophisticated use of information networks to connect people across distances—have stopped destructive practices by industries around the world.
In Ecuador and Peru, tribes like the Shuar and Achuar provide a powerful example—once enemies, they have now have joined forces with each other, as well as with NGOs like the U.S.-based Pachamama Alliance, to block the destruction of their homelands by foreign oil companies. In addition to organizing the largest environmental lawsuit in history (against Chevron/Texaco) in Ecuador, their actions forced the government of Peru to turn back two of decrees that would have opened large areas of the rainforest to investment and allowed projects to be permitted without an opportunity for indigenous review.
Click here to read the rest of this story on Yesmagazine.org.
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