The Dongria Kondh are considered a 'scheduled-tribe', living on the Niyamgiri Hills. Their economy is based on gathering forest products in these hills. Vedanta is determined to strip-mine the Niyamgiri Hills for Bauxite. If Vedanta is permitted to mine in Niyamgiri, two of India's strongest institutional guarantees will be overturned; the right of a 'primitive' tribal group to their territorial integrity and to decide on their own path of development (Schedule V of the Indian constitution), and the right to religious practices and beliefs (Article 25). 

Nonetheless, the company has already built an aluminium refinery in the town of Lanjigarh at the foot of the mountain. Several villages have had to make way for the refinery. Others will have to vacate their lands as the plant expands and feeder roads, airstrips, and toxic waste ponds are built.

In March 2009 Amnesty International visited Lanjigarh to assess the human rights situation on the ground. Their findings show that both the proposed mine and the refinery have serious implications for the human rights of the affected communities – including the rights to water, food, health and a sustainable livelihood. Read more.

The dense forests of the Niyamgiri Hills are one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in eastern India. The area was proposed as a wildlife sanctuary by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in 1998 and was designated as an Elephant Reserve by the State of Orissa in 2004. There are more than 300 species of plants and trees on Nyamgiri Mountain, including at least 50 species of medicinal plants. The forests are home to sambhars, leopards, tigers, barking deer, elephants, sloth bears, pangolin, the rare golden gecko and many other endangered species, whose habitat is protected under section 18 of the Indian Wildlife Act.

The Niyamgiri Hills are also integral to the ecosystem of a much wider area. More than 30 streams and two large rivers, the Nagavali and Vamsadhara depend on water flow from the Nyamgiri hills. The bauxite deposits and the forests are essentially overhead acquifers, feeding the rivers during the dry season. The hydrological systems on which hundreds of thousands of people depend will be severely impacted if Vedanta's plans go ahead.

In the Niyamgiri forest Vedanta Resources has illegally felled hectares of forest. After the clear cutting, an aluminum smelter was built without the necessary permission. The Orissa pollution board has found that the smelters waste water has contaminated the Vanshadhara river as well as local groundwater. The smelter is designed to process bauxite from the surrounding mountains.

A commission of the Indian High Court has condemned Vedanta for the consequences of the bauxite mining on the indigenous population. Vedanta already faced censure in 2004 for dumping toxic waste from the Tuticorin copper smelter in Tamil Nadu. A working group of the Indian High Court wrote in 2004 that the waste processing of the copper smelter failed.