Green Nobel for Odia Activist Praffula Samantara

Sixth environmental activist from India to win the Goldman Environment Prize

Bhubaneswar: Prafulla Samantara, the well-known social activist fighting for the rights of tribals in the Niyamgiri hills becomes the sixth Indian to receive the prestigious Goldman Environment Prize 2017. The prize, also known as Green Nobel Prize, was announced in San Francisco, USA on Monday.

His citation reads:

“…historic 12 year legal battle that affirmed the indigenous Dongria Kondh’s land rights and protected the Niyamgiri Hills from a massive, open-pit aluminum ore mine.”

The Niyamgiri Hills, situated in the districts of Kalahandi and Rayagada in Odisha, is an area of incredible biodiversity. The thick forestlands are home to a number of endangered species and serve as an important migration corridor for elephants. More than 100 streams flow down from the peaks, providing a critical water source for millions of people living at the surrounding.

The hills are of vital importance to the Dongria Kondh, an 8,000 member indigenous tribe with ties to the adjacent environment. The Dongrias are renowned fruit farmers with vast knowledge of the forest’s medicinal plants. The tribe’s relationship with the land goes beyond survival; the Niyamgiri Hills are sacred, and as such, the Dongrias consider themselves to be its protectors.

Educated as a lawyer and a noted activist since the Jayprakash Narayan movement, Mr. Prafulla Samantara, 65, grew up in a family of farmers. He is regarded as one of the courageous activists, who consistently encouraged the tribal population of the geography, who have been fighting to save their live and livelihood. His organization Lok Shakti Abhiyan, became instrumental for hundreds of other social organizations, activists along with local tribals to save Niyamgiri Hills from proposed mining-to-metals initiative by Vedanta to expand its bauxite mining in the region.

In 2003, Samantara and his colleagues saw the announcement in newspapers about the proposed project and he was aware of how environmentally destructive the initiative would be. He noted that the isolated Dongria Kondhs do not understand properly the so-called political process as well as the vested interest of the company behind every move. He felt a responsibility to help them protect their land and filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court on issue opposing the project.

In the simultaneous move, Samantara alerted the locals against the company’s plan to take away their land of 1,600 acre for mining of Bauxite ore over 70 million tonnes. The said project would have destroyed the virgin forest land and would lead to pollution and successive drying up of the nearby river and streams thus aggravating problems for the thousands of forest inhabitants.

After a long drawn legal battle involving threats to his life, Samantara and the tribals were successful in their crusade against the company as the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment issued on 18^th April 2013 by empowering local communities to have the final say in mining project on their land and provided the right to vote to the village councils to decide the fate of the venture. Finally, by August 2013, all 12 tribal village councils had unanimously voted against the project. In August 2015, after years of struggle, Vedanta announced the closure of an aluminum refinery it had built in anticipation of the mine’s opening, which considered as a victory in favor of human rights.

The annual Goldman Environment Prize honours grassroot environmentalists, one each from six continents, who undergo risk to their lives, to protect the environment and empower those who have most to lose from industrial projects threatening their traditional livelihood.

In 2017, other winners include Mark Lopez, United States; Uroš Macerl, Slovenia; Rodrigo Tot, Guatemala; Rodrigue Katembo, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Wendy Bowman, Australia.

Since 1990, when the award was first instituted, other five Indians — Medha Patkar, Mahesh Chandra Mehta, Rasheeda Bee, Champaran Shukla and Ramesh Agrawal have won the prize so far.