"One of Indias most remote tribes." "A mountain they revere as a god." "And the multinational mining company with its sight set on the mountains sacred stone." "The stage is set for a bitter struggle against the backdrop of eastern Indias dramatic landscapes." "As the buldozers draw closer, what will one tribe do to save their forest, their mountains and their god." "Mine: story of a sacred mountain" "There is a place where rich forest shrouds the hillsides." "Where the summers monsune rains turn the streams into rivers." "And the mountains are revered as gods." "These are Indias Niyamgiri hills, home to one of the subcontinents most remote tribes, the Dongria Kondh." "In the beginning, their mountain god created Niyamgiri as a homeland for the Dongria." "And they say, he has been watching over them ever since." "Niyam Raja is our God and we worship Him." "We worship the rocks, the hills, our houses and our villages." "The mountain is our temple and our God." "High on the hillsides, a family tends their garden." "We grow millet, peas, beans... we grow everything." "We get leaves, paeri fruit, bamboo, roots and our medicinal plants from our mountain." "Why are you not speaking?" "I´m doing all the talking!" "Dongria Kondh men spend much of their time in the forest collecting a different kind of harvest." "They are gathering juice from the forests giant palm trees." "The palm juice is mildly alcoholic." "It gives the men the energy they need to keep walking through the dense forest for hours on end." "I´ve travelled across all these mountains." "I could show you everything here." "Palm juice from trees in the forest, which fills our stomachs and gives us strength." "Bananas and sweet roots that give us our heatlh." "You must film them as well." "But it´s not the bananas or the sweet roots which are now attracting outsiders." "The mountains are rich in bauxite, the raw material for alluminium." "And it´s this that´s brought London based mining company Vedanta Resources here." "It plans a vast open cast mine on the top of Niyamgiri the Dongria Kondh´s most sacred site." "Lodu is the leader of Lakpota, a village that lies inside the area leased to Vedanta." "He is taking Survival researchers to the mine site in the forest above his village." "They want to take these rocks from the mountain." "These rocks are the reason our children can live here." "Because of these the rain comes." "The winter comes, the wind blows, the mountain brings all the water." "If they take away these rocks, we´ll all die." "We´ll lose our soul." "Niyamgiri is our soul." "The company hopes that blasting the top of the mountain away will reveal 70 million tons of bauxite." "Through the trees you can see Vedantas alluminium refinery in neighbouring Lanjigarh." "These white planes far below Niyamgiri are home to other neighbouring tribes." "And Lodu sees their fate as a warning." "You should go to Lanjigarh and find out how the refinery came to be there." "Life is so hard there that old women and children are dying." "Now that people there have realised what is happening they are speaking out against it." "Initially they welcomed the company but now they realise their mistake because they live like dogs." "Now they realise they´ve lost their land and their homes forever." "Vedanta has stolen everything from them." "Go to Lanjigarh and see for yourself." "Vedantas refinery dominates the planes around Lanjigarh." "Its toxic waste is dumped into enormous pools and then seeps underground." "You can even hear its humm from high in the Dongria Kondhs forests." "But Lanjigarh wasn´t always like this." "We used to eat and drink well." "We lived on fruits and vegetables." "from the forest and the farming was good." "Nowadays nearly everything around Lanjigarh has the word Vedanta written on it." "But even talking about the company is something that makes some people here nervous." "Then the company came and told us" "and told us to leave our land and take money in exchange." "Most people said "we´ll not leave our village"." "But the company tried to force them out and harrassed them a lot." "When people said they wouldn´t leave, they came with bulldozers at night and demolished their homes." "After losing our land to the company," "I can´t begin to describe what trouble we are going through." "The site where the refinery is now, the sources of water were in abundance." "But now the bauxite dust is mixing into the wells and the streams." "We´re in great trouble, nothing is right here." "But alongside the pollution and the razorwire there is something remarkable - resistance." "Now they´re trying to tell us that the company will do good things." "But we say," ""You don´t have to take care of us."" ""We can take care of ourselves."" ""We´ll lead our lives the way we know."" "Vedanta is trying to terrorise us." "People here are extremely agitated now." "They are ready to lay down their lives to protect Niyamgiri." "Back in Niyamgiri the pressure is mounting." "Roads are being bulldozed deep into the hills." "We will not allow Vedanta to come here and because we didn´t know earlier, they were able to build the refinery in Lanjigarh." "But now that we know about them, we won´t allow them to come here at any cost." "We don´t need roads up to Niyamgiri." "We don´t have any vehicles to use this kind of road." "And so the Donghrias have blocked the roads into their sacred hills." "They are not waiting for their fate to be decided in a corporate boardroom." "Vedanta does not have any right to touch our Niyamgiri mountain." "Even if you cut our throuats, even if you behead us, we are not going to allow this." "We´ll see how they are going to take over our mountains." "Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters, did you hear everything?" "We need people from outside to stand with us, then we have to fight." "Then we can survive." "We can save our land." "And we can be in charge of our territory." "We won´t give our forest to anybody," "Even if you kill us, even if you hang us." "We´ll carry on living here peacefully." "All us women will go to jail." "How many people can they keep in jail?" "How long can the police keep us for?" "They will give me rice and meat so I´ll live in jail." "I´m not going to leave my Niyam Raja until I die." "It´s not just about us, we need people like you to join our struggle." "We have to drive Vedanta away from here." "Where will us children go?" "How will we survive?" "No, we won´t give up our mountain!" "We asked Vedanta Resources plc for their response to this film." "We received no reply."