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Kudremukh

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Background

Ore prospecting in Kudremukh

ESG is presently campaigning along with regional and international environmental groups and local communities towards seeking a ban on mining operations of Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd. (KIOCL) in the Kudremukh National Park. This campaign challenges the decision taken during emergency rule in India in the seventies allowing for iron ore mining to supply ore to Iran in exchange for oil, despite fundamental violations of wildlife and forest conservation legislation. Over the years, the mining has destroyed highly sensitive tropical evergreen “shola” forests in vast areas, threatened wildlife populations and habitats in Kudremukh and neighbouring Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary, and polluted the Bhadra river causing crop losses to farming communities, wiping out aquatic life and species and threatening the health of people and wildlife. If mining were to continue, one of the few remaining vast stretches of endemic “shola” forests would be lost, and the watershed of three major rivers, the Tunga, Bhadra and Netravathi, threatened.

ESG’s initiative along with various local groups and individuals has ensured that the long term mining lease that KIOCL expected during 1999 was denied, leading to only annual extensions over the past two years. As a result, further long term extensions were subjected to detailed EIAs by Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute. The decision on whether the long term clearance will be accorded to KIOCL is due during July 2001, and intensive efforts are underway to stop further mining.

The public sector export oriented KIOCL which justifies its mining as being a major foreign exchange earner, is presently fighting for long term mining clearances in order to enable its plans of privatising the company under the liberalisation regime. Japan, China and Iran are amongst the key importing countries.

ESG along with Friends of the Earth – Japan is campaigning to offset the proposed Japanese takeover of the mines. Together an international campaign was launched pressing the Prime Minister of Japan Mr. Yoshiro Mori not to extend public support to imports of iron ore into Japan, on the occasion of his visit to India during August 2000. Various international groups such as Corporate Watch (UK), Sierra Club of USA, Environmental Investigation Agency of UK, and World Wide Fund for Nature – India have extended support to the campaign.

“‘White Elephant’ in a Green Forest”, a Campaign Note prepared by ESG, has drawn the attention of thousands of groups and individuals to this serious problem. Pressure is being exerted on the Chief Minister of Karnataka and Prime Minister of India to stop extension of mining operations.

Documentation

ESG Reports about Mining and Kudremukh National Park:

Press Releases

Images

Entrance to the Kudremukh National Park, home to various critically endangered species including the Lion Tailed Macaque, which is restricted to the southern Western Ghats. The National park also has vast stretches of shola grasslands, a unique vegetation association limited to the southern Western Ghats and which is increasingly under threat due to forest fragmentation.
The ‘reservoir’ behind the the Lakhya dam, used to store effluents from the beneficiation stage of the iron ore processing. KIOCL illegally increased the height of the Lakhya by more 30 mts. But soon realised that even this was not enough. The company now wants to construct one more dam nearby, across the Kachigehole, again a tributary of the Bhadra river like the Lakhya to support their operations into the future.
The scars of ore prospecting in Nelibeedu. In violation of the restrictions in the prospecting license, KIOCL constructed roads, felled trees and brought in heavy machinery to prospect for iron ore. The above area lies within the proposed Kudremukh National Park where any non-forest activity is illegal.
Mountains of waste. Open cast mining involves clearing the surface layers of earth (overburden) to get to the ore body, huge amounts of overburden are produced during this process. With no place to safely store this, it results in extensive runoff into rivers during heavy rains.
The ravages of prospecting. Prospecting involves huge amounts of drilling into the ore body to collect samples and so on. The water spewing forth is from one such well that KIOCL dug during its prospecting operations in Nellibeedu. Water gushing out from the sides of the hill is a indicative of the important role played by these hills in acting as sponges, soaking up the water during the rains and releasing it during the rest of the year. This particular ‘leak’ in an underground stream has resulted in a hill stream downhill drying up.
Exposed ore body.
During the monsoons the Lakhya dam which is silting up at a rapid rate due to the huge amounts of iron ore tailings, overflows and this results in the river turning red due to the pollution load. Even at distances of over 20km downstream from the dam, the river banks have iron tailings to depths of over 5 feet.
Another view of the ‘reservoir’ behind the the Lakhya dam, used to store effluents from the beneficiation stage of the iron ore processing. KIOCL illegally increased the height of the Lakhya by more 30 mts. But soon realised that even this was not enough. The company now wants to contruct one more dam nearby, across the Kachigehole, again a tributary of the Bhadra river like the Lakhya to support their operations into the future.
The Lakhya Tailings Dam.

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