| Brian Cassey Photographer Cairns Australia

India … Modi … Adani … the Gond … & The Washington Post …

September 3, 2023June 7, 2023

… very gratified to be a part of a significant political and environmental story crafted and published yesterday by The Washington Post.

The story … by journalists Gerry Shih, Karishma Mehrotra and Anant Gupta and accompanied by two of my images from Chhattisgarh, India … is entitled “India Cracks Down on Critics of Coal”. The lengthy story documents how India’s Modi government is using state power to help Gutam Adani expand his coal operations in the country and silence the voices of NGO’s and other critics both Internationally and internally.

A large focus of the story is the destruction of the Hasdeo Arand forest in Chhattisgarh state central India by the expansion of open cut coal mines already operating or planned … with Adani a major player. It also documents the special relationship between Gutam Adani and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the impacts on any opposition to coal expansion.

In 2019 I wrote and illustrated a story on the impact of the destruction of the Hasdeo Arand, the effects on the Gond tribal people who have called it home for centuries and the plans for many more coal mines in the pristine forest area, home to elephants, jaguars and other wild life. The story was featured in The Guardian (main story and a photo gallery) and several other International publications including CNN, Italy’s ‘Corriere Della Sera’ newspaper, ‘Orion’ environmental magazine and more. The Washington Post story updates the situation in my original story and expands into how the Indian government is cracking down on any dissent, be it International NGO’s or Indian Nationals, as Adani and others carve up the profits from unbridled coal expansion.

It is a worrying, troublesome but important and fascinating read … highly recommended … and may be found here … https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/05/india-coal-adani-modi-crackdown/ (no subscription required). My two supporting images from the Hasdeo Arand forest are shown below.

Images © Brian Cassey – publication The Washington Post

The Washington Post story on India crack down on critics of coal - Adani & the Gond - images by Brian Cassey

Excellent Run In “Orion” Magazine …

September 25, 2022September 21, 2022

Classy International quality quarterly print magazine “Orion” celebrates it’s 40th anniversary of continuous publication this year … and I can’t think of a better time for my images to make an appearance inside in a ten page ‘spread’.

Four of the images I made whilst working in Chhattisgarh India just before the pandemic are spread across the pages of the story “The Place of Many Waters” penned by University of Sydney professor of sociology Sujatha Fernandes … two images as double page spreads and two page lead pics. Also a fifth ‘bonus’ image run across the back cover of the magazine accompanied by a beautiful fitting quote (see images below).

My work in Chhattisgarh on Indian mining giant Adani’s open cut coal mining destruction of the beautiful Hasdeo Arand forest … the centuries long home of the tribal Gond peoples … seamlessly slotted around Sujatha’s excellent words documenting the struggles, similarities and threats from the mining conglomerate to indigenous peoples in India and Central Australia.

Will let “Orion” explain it’s style and mission in it’s own words … “Orion magazine invites readers into a community of caring for the planet. Through writing and art that explore the connection between nature and culture, Orion inspires new thinking about how humanity might live on Earth justly, sustainably, and joyously.”

The complete “The Place of Many Waters” story … Sujatha’s words and my images … may also be found online here … https://orionmagazine.org/article/coal-mining-indigenous-land-rights/ … however, it’s much nicer to view and read it in the lovely hard copy paper magazine.

My work on the Gond people of the Hasdeo Arand and their fight against the destruction of their forest home has also been published elsewhere … including (but not only) … the Guardian, CNN and Italy’s ‘Corriere Della Sera‘.

Images © Brian Cassey, magazine © Orion

Covid, Adani, Global Climate Catastrophe … CNN and Me …

September 27, 2020September 26, 2020

… great to be part of a massive Covid-19 story of global importance just published on CNN.

The story entitled ‘The One Chance We Have’ delves into the story of how … during the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent confusion and devastation of the global economy … fossil fuel producing countries are injecting taxpayer money into propping up polluting industries that are hastening an earlier climate catastrophe.

The story uses vignettes from four fossil fuel producing countries … Canada, Poland, Australia and India … to substantiate the premise that ‘The pandemic gave the world a golden opportunity to fix the climate crisis. We’re about to waste it.’

My work appears in the ‘India’ segment … and comprises six of the images I made just on a year ago in Chhattisgarh … set amongst a lengthy story (somewhat based on my original words but ‘updated’) on the destruction of the Hasdeo Arand forest and the Gond tribal population by Indian mining giant Adani hand in hand with Modi’s government.

My images and words from Chhattisgarh have previously been published in The Guardian (here and here), in Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera (here) and elsewhere. Very gratifying to see the work picked up again.

I must stress that this current story on CNN is a great and incredibly important piece of journalism and is well worth a look (at the images) and a good long read. Please do … there is far too much in the story to go into here and the implications for the future of the planet are chilling.

I’m joined pictorially in the piece (in the ‘Australian’ section of the story) by Aussie based colleagues David Maurice Smith and Matthew Abbott. Hi Guys !

Thanks CNN for the important story and for using my work to help illustrate it. Thanks yet again to my fixer/friend Srienivas Akella from Mumbai … brilliant travelling with you.

Below … images (3 of my 6) © Brian Cassey … from the CNN story ‘The One Chance We Have’.

CNN story 'The One Chance We Have' on Covid-19 pandemic hastening a global climate catastrophe - images by Brian Cassey

Adani and Gond Images in ‘Corriere Della Sera’ Covid-19 story…

July 10, 2023May 25, 2020

Great to see that my images made in Chhattisgarh, India last year have been given another breath of life to illustrate a Covid-19 related story just published in both the print and online editions of the venerable Italian newspaper ‘Corriere Della Sera’.

I originally made the images and wrote the words around mining giant Adani’s destruction of large areas of the Hasdeo Arand forest in the state of Chhattisgarh, India … and ousting the original Gond tribal peoples from their ancient forest homelands. Two articles were originally published in ‘The Guardian’ … here … and here … and on my blog at … https://www.briancasseyphotographer.com/blog/publications/2020/02/adani-and-the-gond/

However, ‘Corriere Della Sera’ updated the story to be more appropriate for the strange Coronavirus times we are now living in. Six months makes a monumental difference. Their story entitled ‘Mines or solar energy: the pandemic accelerates the dilemma of the giant India’ … centres on the premise that the onslaught of Covid-19 in India has began a perceived shift away from traditional coal for power production towards solar power. India’s top twenty ‘think tanks’ have together lobbied Modi’s Indian government to utilise solar panels to power the massive rural areas and populations of the sub-continent in place of coal. The plight of the Gond peoples in the Hasdeo Arand forest and their battle against mining giant Adani (based on my original story) are central to their argument.

Obviously Corriere Della Sera’s story is in Italian … and it may be found here … and in scans of pages 12, 13 and 14 of the paper here below. A Google ‘translation’ into English is a little hard to fathom but makes much more sense to me than the Italian: -) … find it here.

Images X 8 © Brian Cassey (all except the solar power image) … publication © Corriere Della Sera, Milan, Italy

Corriere Della Sera - Adani, Gond Peoples and Hasdeo Arand Forest story - images by Brian Cassey

Adani and the Gond …

July 31, 2023February 17, 2020

Great, at last, to see images and words I put together during late last years journey to India published for the first time.

The Guardian UK have published my work on their ‘The Age of Extinction’ feature page under the head “India’s Ancient Tribes Battle to Save their Forest Home from Mining”.

The ‘ancient tribe’ is the ancient Gond people, their ‘forest home’ is the Hasdeo Arand forest in Chhattisgarh … and they are battling (amongst others) the massive Indian conglomerate that is also planning to mine in central Queensland Australia … Adani.

The Hasdeo Arand forest is the largest continuous stretch of dense forest in central India, covering about 170,000 hectares of the state of Chhattisgarh – the coal mining powerhouse of the country.

One of the last remaining remnants of the massive deciduous forests that once covered much of India, it is rich in biodiversity, contains many threatened species including elephants, leopards and sloth. It is also home to the Gond – one of India’s original indigenous peoples or Adivasis. The tribe take their name from the mythical Gondwanaland that gave birth to India and they have a deep spiritual connection to the forest. To the Gond the forest is life itself. Every forest feature has a spiritual significance – they see spirits in every leaf, tree, stream, river and hill. They also rely on products collected there to sustain life – flowers, fruits, grains, seeds, tubers and roots for food and medicines – and timber, leaves and grasses for ropes, mats, brooms, baskets, fires and building purposes.

Sadly for the Gond people and other Adivasis forest dwellers, the Hasdeo Arand sits atop over a billion metric tonnes of proven quality coal reserves.

In 2006 the Hasdeo Arand was legally declared off limits from exploitation, followed by a more explicit declaration by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 2009 that the area was a ‘no-go’ area for mining.

That all changed in 2011 when the government changed tack, the community forest rights were revoked and forest clearance and mining permissions was granted for three coal blocks in the Hasdeo Arand … including the Parsa East and Kante Basan mine managed by Adani. The pace of new mines in the forest has escalated … thirty more newly surveyed open cut mine sites are due to go online in the Hasdeo Arand which threatens to destroy approximately eighty percent of the entire forest … and the lives of the forest dweller Gond people.

I thought that might make a decent story !!!! It is little known in Australia where passions for and against the Adani owned Carmichael mine in central Queensland are running high.

So, with friend and former pic editor Srienivas Akella in tow we travelled Mumbai to Raipur and into Chhattisgarh. We spent a total of a whole day driving over the four days covering the story. We met many Gond, documented their protests, lifestyle and the effects that the mines were having on their well being and that of the forest, resident elephants and other occupants … and saw the massive operating Adani Parsa East and Kante Basan open cut coal mine.

Pleased that The Guardian have seen the importance of this story, not only to Australians and Indians, but also to the planet in general.

Special Thanks to Srienivas and local Raipur contact Bipasha Paul.

My ‘The Guardian’ story and images may be found at … https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/10/indias-ancient-tribes-battle-to-save-their-forest-home-from-mining

Below are just a small percentage of the images (© Brian Cassey) from the project … some that didn’t make the published story. Pics of the Adani operations at their PEKB mine, Gond protests, the threatened Hasdeo Arand forest and Chhattisgarh.

STOP PRESS … seventeen of my images from this story are now published as a ‘special feature’ over a week on the planet wide instagram feed … https://www.instagram.com/everydayclimatechange/ … devoted to bringing attention to climate change issues.