Coal mining has inflicted irreparable harm on the environment – the rivers and reservoirs, air, and land are heavily polluted. The indigenous peoples can not carry out their traditional economic activities – hunting and farming.
For many indigenous peoples, ancestral lands serve not just as a place to live, but also as the foundation of their identity and well-being. The Earth is part of their worldview and spirituality, and indigenous peoples can easily lose their identities, languages, and cultures when separated from their lands and their ability to follow a traditional way of life. This is why the collective right of indigenous peoples to land, territory, and other resources is fundamental in nature and is enshrined in the core human rights documents on this topic – the UN Declaration on the Protection of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ILO Convention 169 (Russian Federation has not ratified this).