Forest Law and

Environmental Justice,2016

Representation for the Save Dume Organization

The granting of the mining licence to the Reliance Corporation will have a huge impact on
the ecological balance in the Dume Forest reserve. The community should keep in mind that
ones the mining process begins if licence is cleared there will large amount of forest
clearance that would take place. There will be a large scale destruction of forests that would
lead to various problems. The massive deforestation that would take place will be violating
the section 17 A of the WILDLIFE PROTECTION ACT, 1972 as there is destruction of
some of the specified plants.
Primarily there is a depletion in the natural resources of the forests, which will lead to
violation of their forest rights which was previously ensured in the section 3(1) of the
FOREST RIGHTS ACT, 2006 which guarantees them the following:
1. right to hold and live in the forest land (3(1)(a))
2. community rights such as nistar(3(1)(b))
3. right of ownership(3(1)(c))
4. access to collect ,use and dispose of minor forest produce (3(1)(c))
5. community rights of uses and entitlements(3(1)(d))
6. right to protect, regenerate, or conserve or manage any community forest
resource(3(1)(i))
7. right to in-situ rehabilitation (3(1)(m))
8. right of access to biodiversity (3(1)(k))
9. Other traditional rights enjoyed by forest dwelling (3(1)(l)).
These rights get infringed upon as once we start the mining process even the parts that were
previously accessible i.e. the fringes of the forest areas even those cant be used by the
community. Thus the right to life guaranteed in the constitution of India in article 21 also gets
violated here as they cant live or sustain their lives in the way they used to because they have
been living in that fashion for years away from the human civilization.

Forest Law and

Environmental Justice,2016

Post the granting of licence there will be a displacement of tribes and because of the improper
compensation that would be given they lose the land rights that they previously enjoyed.
There can be lot of issues pertaining to compensation of the tribal. The first thing is deciding
on how much would be compensated for this? How will the compensation be done and where
will they be provided with land if only to be compensated? if they are provided with land else
where there will be a loss in the normalcy as the displaced land would not be similar to what
their original land is and these are very remote and distanced from the other civilian
community they will find it difficult to sustain their normal life. Thus the price of deciding
the amount to be compensated takes a huge step back and there is suffering for the tribal
population in this aspect. The price or land that they may be given wont be adequate as it
doesnt take into account the other losses that it suffers. The tribal population living in the
backward areas live in an informal economy and require economic, social, cultural and
psychological preparation to cope with unequal encounter with the formal society they are
being pushed into. There is a heavy concentration on only what the economic benefits are and
the other issues like social, psychological and cultural which eventually leads to their
marginalization and eventually reducing their land rights. These projects could alienate them
from their dependents. Insecurity and vulnerability will increase as the necessary adequate
safety measures wont be put in place. Landlessness is one of the first consequences. Also
support mechanisms could also decline because of these displacement .Next important issue
that comes is joblessness; this first begins the form of lower access to work. The second issue
that arises is that the occupational mobility decreases as the projects usually offer very few
jobs. The tribal person often has a very specific kind of expertise which has no other use in
other places. Thus, there can be marginalization as the economic power could be lost by the
tribal population could fall below the poverty level due to lack of any source of income.
There is homelessness or loss of housing and shelter can take place. In a non technical
broadly cultural sense this is the loss of groups identity and cultural space or place of
attachment or cultural impoverishment. Along with this there is a loss of access to common
property assets that used to belong to the tribal community before the reallocation.
Finally, there could be decrease in the health levels of the displaced due to the stress of
displacement, insecurity and outbreak of diseases in the reallocated locations. Empirically it
is found that forced displacement increases peoples degree of exposure and vulnerability to
illness and to comparatively more severe illness. This could also be because of the
undernourishment and food insecurity due to being uprooted.
Once the mining process starts there are lot of environmental and ecological hazards that
could occur. The environmental impact of mining includes erosion, formation of sinkholes,

Forest Law and

Environmental Justice,2016

loss of biodiversity, and contamination of soil, groundwater and surface water by chemicals
from mining processes. Mining can have adverse effects on surrounding surface and
groundwater if protective measures are not taken. The result can be unnaturally high
concentrations of some chemicals, such as arsenic, sulfuric acid, and mercury over a
significant area of surface or subsurface. Runoff of mere soil or rock debris -although nontoxic- also devastates the surrounding vegetation. The dumping of the runoff in surface
waters or in forests is the worst option here In some cases, additional forest logging is done in
the vicinity of mines to increase the gold volume for the sick and room for the storage of the
created debris and soil. Besides creating environmental damage, the contamination resulting
from leakage of chemicals also affects the health of the local population. Humans are also
affected by mining. There are many diseases that can come from the pollutants that are
released into the air and water during the mining process. For example, during smelting
operations enormous quantities of air pollutants, such as the suspended particulate matter,
SOx, arsenic particles and cadmium are emitted. Metals are usually emitted into the air as
particulates. The presence of these harmful effluents would effect the grazing of animals in
the forest areas too. Since the communities would be rehabilitated close to those places itself
there can be serious health issues to the communities and since they are believers of their own
traditional institutions for healthcare they wont be ready to use the modern medical system
and would thus suffer. The other alternative could be to rehabilitate them elsewhere but
because of the problems that would take place by rehabilitating them elsewhere like
mentioned above this is not a feasible option.
The mass deforestation leads to the loss of habitat and displacement of the tigers and other
wildlife. These animals would now venture into the tribal areas and may cause harm to the
tribal population. There can be cases of these animals being hunted causing a violation of
section 9 of the WILDLIFE PROTECTION ACT, 1972.

CONSIDERING THE ABOVE FACTS WE WOULD URGE THE GOND

COMMUNITY TO NOT APPROVE AN NOC CERTIFICATE FOR THE MINING
LEASE