Proposed Bauxite Mine Threatens Rare Jeypore Ground Gecko in Odisha Hills

Just four individuals of the endangered Jeypore ground gecko have been documented over the past year in Odisha's Balda hills, right inside the site of a proposed bauxite mining project linked to the Adani group.

The Threat of Mining

The opencast bauxite mine proposal covers 147 hectares of forest inside the Nageswari reserve forest. The Jeypore ground gecko is a small, nocturnal reptile measuring about 3.6 inches long with a yellow-orange body and a large head. British naturalist Richard Henry Beddome first described the species in 1878. It was thought to be extinct for 130 years until herpetologists Ishan Agarwal and Aniruddha Datta-Roy rediscovered a specimen in Odisha's Koraput district in 2010. Scientists know very little about its habits or lifecycle, but its home is shrinking due to coffee plantations, hydropower projects, and mining. The original site where it was found in the 1870s, Potangi, was lost to a National Aluminium Company Limited bauxite mine, and the gecko is believed to be extinct there now.

Adivasi Protests

Resident Bondo and Porja Adivasis have protested the mining proposal for two years because the land is their ancestral home. They filed a complaint against Adani-subsidiary Kalinga Alumina Ltd in February, but nothing changed. Naturalist Yuvan Aves stated that the government has refused to recognize forest rights applications filed by the communities. A protest took place earlier this month, and local residents stopped Adani group drones from scoping the area. Ecologist Ishan Agarwal explained that the gecko split from its closest relatives over 20 million years ago and lives only in high-elevation forests in the northern Eastern Ghats. Renowned herpetologist Romulus Whitaker warned that the mining project will destroy the habitat of this flagship species and advised against it.

Context

India's Eastern Ghats contain rich mineral deposits that often overlap with fragile, high-elevation forest ecosystems and tribal homelands. Balancing industrial resource extraction with the preservation of rare endemic species and indigenous land rights remains a major challenge in forest regions across the country.