Vedanta Resources, the British-based resources firm, faced a whirlwind of criticism in recent weeks. Coverage of its attempted installation of a mining facility in the hillside home of Indian tribal peoples has swept the web and beyond.

The Dongria Kondh live in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa, India. The planned mine will strip them of their livelhoods, culture and religious heartlands.

Survival has just launched a campaign in defence of these people as the Indian Supreme court prepares to announce their fate.



Various British newspapers acknowledged the ‘social and environmental catastrophe’ on the drawing board:

The Telegraph: ‘…mining company is about to end a way of life forever.’

The Independent: ‘…Norway has already excluded Vedanta from its national pension fund investments.’

Indian magazine Tehelka tells the troubling tales of similar Vedanta projects in the past that caused the sort of destruction now on the cards.



A number of colourful videos from human rights organisations highlight the campaign and cultural stories. Action Aid offer a fascinating account of the push to have Vedanta shareholders realise what’s going on.

Another video gives a stirring musical outlook on life in the Nyamgiri hills and the danger it faces.



The finance community raised the alarm on the project with articles highlighting Vedanta’s new scheme as a dodgy investment. Commodityonline.com notes that the company is in ‘a tight spot’.

Meanwhile Vedanta’s own website makes no mention of the tragedy it’s proposing.



With the global outcry ringing in the courts and boardrooms that matter, it’s time to add your voice to the throng. We face another urgent moment of action to defend a people on the brink of destruction. Please use our tool to send a letter by mail to the Prime Minister of India.

Portrait of a Yanomami shaman, © Claudia Andujar

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, a Shaman himself, speaks of the xapiripë (the spirits):

‘Only those who know the xapiripë can see them because the xapiripë are very small and bright like light. There are many, many xapiripë, thousands of xapiripë like stars.

‘They are beautiful and decorated with parrot feathers, painted with urucum (annatto). Others have oraikok and others still have earrings and use black dye. They dance very beautifully and sing differently.’

As hyponotic as the portrait is, the Yanomami find themselves threatened by ranchers, goldminers, soya growers and others in the business of stealing Yanomami land.

The latest threat is the mining bill making the rounds in the debating hall of Brazil’s congress. You can help: write to the Brazilian president expressing your concern. It really works.

Last Sunday saw the centenary of the London Marathon and another Survival team run one of the most famous races on earth, through rain and hail, for the lives of threatened tribal peoples everywhere.

Survival supporters go wild on the sidelines.

2008 has been a brilliant year for the Survival team. Not only did they smash all previous fundraising records by raising over £32,000, but each one of them struggled through months of training and injuries, ending up a hero.



Darren didn’t slow to a walk once and then helped a flagging stranger make it over the finish line.

Doug beat Olympic rower James Cracknell and his own 3 hour target by over five minutes.

Sam ran the hardest race of his life but raised more money for Survival than any individual ever has.

Tulls did a great time and sacrificed his i-phone to the marathon gods.

Rachel ran a brilliant race and passed a teetotal 25th birthday the week before because of her alcohol ban.

Rusty did 15 miles on crutches after having struggled through months of training with a knee injury but still finished with his head held high.


They made us all so proud and the money they raised will make a massive difference to the work we can do in the coming year.

If you’d like to take on the challenge of a lifetime, visit the Saa! Saa! Saa! Team section of the website and register your details for one of our Golden Bond places in the 2009 Flora London Marathon.

You don’t have to be Superman to do it and it isn’t going to be easy for anyone (except Doug perhaps, although we’re not sure he’s entirely human), but it really is a huge achievement and something you’ll always be proud of having done.

In the words of Darren, “it’s a world of pain… but totally worth it”.

In recent days Latin Finance, a digest of Latin American financial affairs, made Peruvian president Alan Garcia its ‘Man of the Year’.
President Garcia is keen to promote oil exploration on the lands of uncontacted Indians in the Peruvian Amazon. He’s not so keen, however, to even admit the existence of the peoples whose lands are being invaded.
Latin Finance’s award spurred Survival to send the magazine a short letter:

In recent days US magazine Latin Finance made Peruvian president Alan Garcia its ‘Man of the Year’.

President Garcia is promoting oil exploration on the lands of uncontacted Indians in the Peruvian Amazon. He’s not so keen, however, to even admit the existence of the peoples whose lands are being invaded.

Latin Finance’s award spurred Survival to send the magazine a short letter:

Dear Sir,

Peru’s economy may well be making ‘admirable progress’, as your magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’, Alan Garcia, Peru’s president, says, but at what cost.

The oil exploration and production his government is encouraging is endangering the lives of tribal peoples in the Peruvian rainforest who have had no contact with the outside world.

These ‘uncontacted’ tribes are extremely vulnerable to any form of contact with outsiders, like oil workers, because of their lack of immunity to western diseases, and it is very common for more than half of a newly-contacted tribe to die.

Moreover, this land is recognised as belonging to the tribes by international law - a law which Peru has ratified and which President Garcia’s government is choosing to ignore.

What do you think? Should President Garcia be awarded ‘Man of the Year’ while at the same time plotting the destruction of entire peoples?

Share your comments here, or you might wish to speak up for tribal people suffering in Peru over at the living in Peru website.

Yesterday marked the grand launch of Survival’s brand new page on Facebook; another glorious digital Survival ship cutting majestically through the surf of the world wide web. I was all for smashing a bottle of champagne against Toby’s computer as he clicked ‘publish this page’ but the nearest we had to a bottle of champagne was my cup of tea, and for some reason Toby didn’t seem so keen on the idea.

The page increases Survival’s presence on Facebook, and keeps Facebook ‘fans’ of Survival up to date with our urgent campaigns. The ‘Share’ facility allows fans to post links on their profiles, and to encourage friends to get involved.

Survival has always believed that public opinion is the most powerful force for change. The page helps you to mobilise others to join the movement for tribal peoples, and best of all it’s a pretty nifty way for you to show your support for Survival for all your friends to see.

Take a look yourself at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Survival-International/19668531552

We’d love to hear any feedback from you, so do let us know what you think.

Bruce Parry is back in the Amazon for a new BBC TV series, and he’s been learning from the Matis what it was like during the terrible epidemics they suffered after first contact in the 1970s.

The Amazon website has a great background to the current health crisis in the Javari Valley which is enveloping not only the Matis but other recently contacted - and still uncontacted - peoples living in this huge area of the Amazon. Read more about the crisis on the series website.

Survival’s recent Uncontacted Tribes film opens with some dramatic, previously unseen footage of first contact with the Korubo of the Javari Valley - one of the only genuine first contact video clips in existence.

Last year, I spoke to Survival campaigner Fiona Watson about a visit she made to the Matis, and she told me about the current situation in the Javari Valley:

To help the Matis and other peoples of the Javari Valley, please write a letter using Survival’s online letter-writing tool. Your letters really do make a difference.

Survival was invited to the recent opening of long-time supporter Colin Firth’s Ecò store in Chiswick, West London. We were pleased to highlight a few environmental lessons that tribal peoples can teach the ‘developed’ world.

Colin Firth and the Eco Age team.

Far from being relics of the past, tribes and their traditions hold solutions to our world’s greatest problems.

They build with the most sustainable, local materials and only biodegradable matter ends up on the tribal waste heap. These peoples are in the best position to protect the world’s rainforests, which in turn are key in the fight against climate change.

Besides all of this, if left alone, their way of life makes them some of the healthiest people on the planet. Obesity is not an issue for tribal people and they eat only organic food avoiding the potential dangers of pesticides and additives.

Ecò offers “a range of household products and building solutions that are stylish as well as ecologically sound”.

The groundbreaking shop aims to be completely self sufficient, with solar panels, wind turbines and state-of-the-art water recycling systems. It will also act as a hub of information and services for anyone interested in the environment.

It is with this green mission in mind that Colin and company have added their weight to our message that tribal peoples are natural environmentalists and guardians of our future.

www.eco-age.com

Time for a quick roundup of responses to Survival’s ‘Most Racist Article of the Year’ award. This year’s worthy recipient was Paraguay’s newspaper La Nacion for an editorial which compared Paraguayan Indians to a ‘dangerous cancer’ and described them as ‘filthy’.

The award triggered a firestorm of commentary at Ultima Hora, Paraguay’s largest daily newspaper website, currently running to six pages of heated discussion (in Spanish, of course).

The Independent’s Pandora noted the occasion…

Champagne flows and the awards season continues apace. Yesterday brought the Most Racist Article of the Year presentation. … Step forward (drum roll)… the Paraguayan paper La Nacion! I’d like to thank my parents, my editor…

… the award got an honourable mention at Racism Review, while over at IndyBlogs Jerome Bell cried foul:

Clearly the awards is a bit of a cheeky PR stunt by Survival but what the heck.

Cheeky PR stunts? Us?

Jerome wondered how the arrival of the award certificate would be received at La Nacion:

For their journalistic excellence the editors of La Nacion will be sent a certificate inscribed with a quotation from a Native American author who died in 1939. The inscription reads: “All the years of calling the Indian a savage has never made him one.”

I wish I could be a fly on the wall when the editor of La Nacion opens up that parcel.

Indeed.

And for your viewing pleasure, here’s the certificate that La Nacion will shortly be receiving:

Our news item is up on Digg and needs a bit of help, so please vote away.

Canadian freelance writer, broadcaster and singer-songwriter Laurie Sarkadi presents a heartfelt rock number in ode to the Kalahari Bushmen.

“Diamonds in the Kalahari” (follow title to download)

Words and Music by Laurie Sarkadi

Laurie explains how her travels in Botswana inspired her to write the song:

“In early 2004 I travelled overland with my husband and our three sons through South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. While in Botswana we ventured into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve largely by chance, having been unable to secure park permits for more fertile pans in the area over the busy Easter weekend. Using local maps and guide books (which we later discovered were outdated) we tried to drive to the San (Bushman) village of Xade. We never reached our destination because of time and vast distance. It wasn’t until we’d left Botswana and I was reading a South African newspaper that I learned of the forced relocations of the San by the Botswana government. Xade no longer existed.

“Upon returning to Canada I began comparing the way the same diamond companies that were exploring the Central Kalahari were operating in northern Canada. The result was a feature article in Canadian Diamonds magazine (PDF download, 9 pages, 2.2mb) and simultaneously, the song ‘Diamonds in the Kahalari’.”

We are now putting together our Saa! Saa! Saa! Team for the 2008 Mazda London Triathlon, and would love you to be part of it.

Triathlon is the fastest growing sport in the UK, with more and more people coming back each year to compete in this fantastic event. Most of our triathletes are first timers, and Survival will help you every step of the way. Coaching, training and advice are all part of the service. We just ask that you be confident of raising £650 to take part in the race of a lifetime for tribal peoples.

If you’re curious, but still unsure if Triathlon is for you, read on, as Tom, one of our returning triathletes, describes how he got hooked on the event:

“A brilliant experience… As well as getting fit and raising money for a very important charity I knew that the group of other people who raced triathlon now included me.”

Tom, Saa! Saa! Saa! Triathlon Team 2006 and 2007

Triathlon was always something I thought amazingly fit other people do. And yet last August I found myself in a wetsuit nervously bobbing around in a dock with a group of equally worried looking people. What were we thinking of? Had I trained enough, would I even finish the swim? What about the other two legs of the “race”…All the worries and “what ifs” lasted until the horn signalled go and the water turned white like a scene from a Jaws movie. We were off - and there was no turning back.

The build up to the race was pretty hard work. Training was boring but necessary and there were a lot of questions that I wanted answered. Thankfully the Survival team were there with the answers and it was reassuring to know that there was a group of other people in the same boat, taking on the challenge for the first time, and all with similar worries. Organised training rides and drinks after work kept us fired up and the opportunity to don the skin-tight orange and black Survival tri-suit (nice…) ensured that no one was going to drop out.

The race actually went very well. The swim was a bit crazy but the adrenaline got me through much quicker than I had expected. The bike was next and was a really enjoyable ride. Famously busy London roads were closed to traffic, spectators clapped us on and fellow riders were a really friendly bunch. There were people racing at all levels and I soon found my place in the stream of bikes. The run was, as expected, the worst part for me. I knew by that stage that I was going to finish and my legs decided that they didn’t have to work anymore. Shouts of “nearly there mate” from fellow racers helped keep my walking to minimal stretches, even when being passed by the inhumanly fast international elite, and I even managed to run across the finish line, just to keep up appearances.

All in all the race was a brilliant experience and when the email to book for 2007 arrived in my inbox I knew (fairly) immediately that I would do it again. As well as getting fit and raising money for a very important charity I knew that the group of other people who raced triathlon now included me.

To find out more, or to join the team, go to www.survival-international.org/actnow/sponsoredevents