Letter to the President of India

Her Excellency, Mrs. Pratibha Patil
President of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi – 110 004
India
Fax : 91-11-23017290 / 91-11-23017824

                                                                                                                       Date: 24th July, 2009


Your Excellency,
 

PETITION FOR IMMEDIATE STOP TO NEW MINING OPERATIONS IN THE UPPER DAMODAR WATERSHED AFFECTING A MILLION PEOPLE IN 200 VILLAGES


We are a coalition of groups and individuals, both Indian and international, who are concerned about the devastation being effected by the rapid expansion of opencast coal mining in the Upper Damodar watershed, also known as the Karanpura Valley in the Hazaribagh and Chatra districts of Jharkhand, a richly forested and agricultural landscape with hundreds of ancestral villages belonging to originally settled societies. We respectfully ask that you order an immediate stoppage to mining operations and an open and transparent review of how mine clearances are granted.

The State of Jharkhand was formed in 2000 to address the historical discrimination and disenfranchisement of the original settlers who had lived in the region before the establishment of present State boundaries, who are defined by ILO Convention 169 as Indigenous Peoples. Instead of protecting the land rights of these peoples the State is sadly failing to live up to its objective. Instead, the first decade of the State’s existence has been a free-for-all for mining companies, at a terrible cost to the original people and the environment. Damodar river  and its tributaries,  whose watersheds rise in the proposed new Karanpura mining region,  which catchment gives water supplies to West Bengal and Orissa , and which rivers will be further poisoned by the new proposed mines. The mines will be followed by new thermal power stations which will be a further source of carbon dioxide proliferation in large quantities. New dams will be built for the coal fired Thermal Power Stations and forced displacements of people from their homes will be accelerated. The unique and ancient landscape of the Chotanagpur Plateau is being sacrificed in a short-sighted rush for profit.

As an example of this, we would like to draw your attention to the coal mining scheduled to start shortly at Pakri-Barwadih near Barkagaon and over thirty other mines which have been allocated in Karanpura region. The rape of Jharkhand’s indigenous rights, cultural and environmental heritage, is moving into a final stage. The fertile lands of the ancient Barkagaon landscape and the rest of the Upper Damodar catchment watershed now slated for mining as Karanpura Coalfields are among the best agricultural lands in Jharkhand and have been farmed since before recorded history. A unique palaeo-archaeological stone-tool evidence of Early Man known as the Damodar Valley Civilization, prehistoric megalithic sites, and one dozen Mesolithic rock-art sites, the pride of Jharkhand, dated to over 8,000 years back which have been recommended to UNESCO as a Threatened World Heritage Site by INTACH, and over 200 villages where the famous Khovar and Sohrai art being a continuation of the rock-art tradition of the region, and thousands of square kilometers of forests which are wildlife corridors for tiger and elephants, and scores of rivers flowing through the peaceful green agricultural landscape will be gouged out into 300 feet mine pits running shoulder to shoulder down the Karanpura Valley, which will become a stark lunar landscape incapable of supporting human or animal life. The famed forests  which are reflected in the name of Jharkhand itself, the “Forest State”, will be gone. Many of the proud Adivasi people in whose name the State of Jharkhand was formed have already been reduced to being homeless beggars, unable to farm as their predecessors did. The Karanpura Valley of the Upper Damodar catchment has been recognized as a world heritage site at risk by the International Council for Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) which is the forerunner body advising UNESCO for World Heritage Sites. It has also been declared an Endangered Sacred Site by Sacred Sites International, USA in 2005.  In 2000, leading environmentalists had petitioned President Clinton to stop the mining in the valley being funded by the World Bank which appeal was successful. In light of the present escalation of the mining hundreds of thousands of villagers will now be condemned to their fate and forced from their homes as has happened so often, sacrificed for the profits of a few companies.

This expansion has a considerable effect in terms of global warming, to which India is particularly susceptible. Carbon dioxide from burning coal is the single greatest contributor to global warming and can be precisely related to the temperature in the atmosphere.  At present with 387 ppm of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere the temperature is moving toward 2 oC rise leading to eco-catastrophic climate change, which poses a severe threat to human life through heat waves, loss of seasonal rainfall, rising sea levels, melting glaciers in the Himalayas leading to drying up of Himalayan rivers including the Ganges and Indus, and thereafter self-induced global warming through a variety of factors scientifically predicted to lead to sudden rise of temperature at between 400-450 ppm to a threshold of  5o C where it is estimated to stabilize for two centuries.  Dr.James E. Hansen, the world’s foremost climatologist and authority on global warming, has publicly stated that climate eco-catastrophe must be contained within 4-10 years to save this planet. According to Dr.Hansen the main cause of global warming is the burning of coal releasing carbon dioxide, and he and Ex-President Al Gore of the USA are calling for a complete ban on coal mining. 13-14 billion tons of carbon dioxide remain unabsorbed every year in the atmosphere leading to the present concentration of 387ppm. Leading climate authorities are calling for an immediate reduction of 80 percent carbon dioxide emissions and artificial withdrawal of 37 ppm from the atmosphere to bring the level to 350ppm (www.350.org) which is the maximum permissible by climate scientists post-IPCC. Extracting this amount of Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere has been estimated will cost 20 trillion USD. On the other hand in India coal mining is being opened to private bidding and clearances are being assured to all new mines in order to meet a target of 1061 million tons a year by 2025. We earnestly entreat you to stop this. Coal mining apart from escalating global warming destroys agriculture and green environment including forests which support human life in the present and in the future in the event of eco-catastrophe will remain pockets of human survival.

This year the monsoons have failed in many parts due to climate change and rising sea levels are expected. Under these circumstances adding to green house gases (GHGs) is dangerous. The immediate reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 80% has become a global concern. In this regard new opencast coal mines and coal-fired thermal power plants without sequestration, which are acknowledged as among the greatest producers of carbon dioxide, are unjustifiable and unacceptable. India is a low latitude tropical country highly vulnerable to the consequences of temperature rise; climate variability is a major constraint in agriculture, and a hotter climate will result in dryer lands threatening famine.  In view of these facts the new mining displacement of vast populations and destruction of fertile agricultural land, coupled with the burning of more coal with more coal-fired thermal power plants is a threat to the security of the Nation and the World.


Your Excellency, in view of the foregoing we request you to consider the above actions as violations of the following national and international Acts and Declarations for the security of society,

  1. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Articles- 8, 10, 26, 29, 31, and 32.
  2. The Scheduled Tribes and other traditional Forest Dwellers Act 2008, Sections- 3, 4 (5), and 5.
  3. Biological Diversity Act 2002, Sections- 36 (2) which requires directives to the State Government to take appropriate action, where any area rich in bio-diversity is being threatened, and  36 (4i) to asses the environment impact of projects  which are likely to have adverse affects on bio-diversity.
  4. Human Rights Council Resolutions 7/23/2008 and resolution 10/04 15th June 2009 on the Implications of Climate Change, and report of Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (A/HRC/10/61/ 2009) in regard to the relationship between climate change and human rights.
  5. Right to food and water, The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966, Art. 11

We attach herewith the list of names of companies given allotments for coal mining in Karanpura. The Piperwar, Ashoka I & II mines have already destroyed a large, forested landscape originally being Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs), and wildlife corridors used by tigers and elephants between Hazaribagh and Palamau. The Pakri Barwadih mine to our knowledge has received Environmental Clearance which requires to be investigated in view of its damage to bio-diversity and social displacement. The cumulative effects will make Jharkhand one of the most tragic humanitarian and environmental disaster areas in the world. Today it has been reported in the newspaper TOI, 24 July, 2009 that the Deputy Commissioner of Hazaribagh visited village Arahara in the proposed Pakri-Barwadih mine and told the villagers who are refusing to give their land for the coal mine that the State Government’s stand is clear that if the villagers do not relent, the government is bound to acquire the land for the coal mining project in the larger interest of the nation. Mahatma Gandhi had said that when the will of the majority infringes the rights of the individual it is a transgression of justice. This is such an example through forced displacement of indigenous land holders.

Your Excellency, it is time for India to live up to the vision of its founders and put a stop to this. We respectfully request that a line be drawn starting with this ill-conceived mine at Pakri-Barwadih, which we are informed has been given environmental clearance despite huge damage to the environment and social displacement, and that you order an immediate stoppage to its operations. We also object to the recommendation for deemed environmental clearance, that is of clearance obtained automatically. We request that you order a moratorium and ban all new mining projects in the Upper Damodar catchment watershed in the Karanpura valley and order an open and transparent review of the way mine environmental clearances are granted. In this way, you will be fulfilling your responsibility to future generations who will otherwise be condemned to lives of unimaginable misery and poverty.

Your name will also be recorded by history as a leader who acted with vision, wisely considering the needs of the future both globally and locally. You will be acting in the finest traditions of Mahatma Gandhi, who said “The world provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”

This letter is supported and signed by Dr.James E Hansen the world’s foremost climatologist and founder of the concept of  “global warming induced climate change”. Dr.Hansen (Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies) who signs in his affiliation to Columbia University Earth Institute; the letter is also signed by Dr.Jeff Goldstein, Director, National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, Maryland, USA; German affiliate of the World Wide Earth Charter; FIAN organization for Human Rights, Heidelberg; Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition, New Zealand; Adivasi Koordination, Germany; Vandana Shiva, Navdanya, New Delhi;  and other important national and international individuals and organizations, and several thousand local village people of Karanpura in the Upper Damodar valley.

Sincerely yours,

Bulu Imam


Regional Convener
INTACH, Hazaribagh Chapter
 

Attached:

  1. List of Co-Signees (Hard copy) and online petition (www.ipetitions.com/petition/Karanpura/)
    Over 1000 signatures of local villagers of Karanpura have been sent to the President with the hard copy of the above letter
  2. List of proposed Mines in Karanpura Valley
  3. Newspaper Report, TOI 24th July, 2009
  4. Letter to President Clinton, 2000 (http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press1.htm)
  5. ICOMOS World Report on Karanpura Valley

http://www.international.icomos.org/risk/2001/indi2001.htm / http://www.international.icomos.org/risk/2002/india2002.htm 

Copy for Information to:
1. His Excellency Mr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, South Block, Raisina Hill, New Delhi, India-110 011
2. Hon’ble Mrs.Sonia Gandhi, President, All India Congress Committee, 24 Akbar Road, New Delhi
3. His Excellency Shri Kateekal Sankaranarayan, Governor of Jharkhand, Ranchi  834001, Jharkhand
4. Hon’ble Mr.Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary, All India Congress Committee, 24 Akbar Raod, New Delhi

Sign Online Petition at : www.ipetitions.com/petition/Karanpura