What happened to all the objections against Vele?

The Save Mapungubwe Coalition met with their lawyers at Mapungubwe over the past weekend to determine their strategy with regard to CoAL of Africa Limited’s (CoAL) mining activities at Vele.

The environmental coalition, consisting of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the Wilderness Foundation South Africa, the World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa, the Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists, the Mapungubwe Action Group and BirdLife South Africa, is better known as the Coalition.

The Coalition had an informal strategy meeting with their lawyers from the University of the Witwatersrand’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) on Saturday (27th). Represented at the meeting were various local communities who are descendants of the first inhabitants of Mapungubwe. Also at the meeting were surrounding farmers and lodge owners, as well as representatives of numerous environmental awareness groups that are also part of the Coalition.

The meeting acted as a podium for the concerned parties to voice their feelings regarding CoAL. Particularly the communities felt that their concerns were being ignored, not so much by the mine, but rather by the government.

“What has happened to our previous complaints and appeals? I’m certain of it that it has been filed in File 13 and has now been long forgotten,” remarked one community leader. Due to the fact that not all the documents and remarks made during this meeting are public knowledge yet, the attendees asked for anonymity.

The Vele colliery is CoAL’s first operational open-cast mine in the Soutpansberg coal basin and is about 7km from the Mapungubwe World Heritage Site. Since plans became known more than three years ago about the proposed mine, the Coalition has been involved in a legal battle with CoAL.

This saw CoAL paying fines of about R9 million to the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) for an infringement of water licences. At that stage, however, the mine was already 95% complete, and in 2011 the mine was finished and 55 000 tonnes were hauled from its first box cut.

Afterwards, the Coalition and CoAL entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work together to ensure that CoAL follows, to the letter, the terms of all their licences. This agreement was cancelled in December last year due to “past and on-going non-compliance with water legislation at Vele.”

Despite the water being a burning issue, attendees at the meeting also felt that CoAL, together with the government, only sees the money to be made out of coal and not the environment or any cultural heritage in the area. “There is no monetary value for them in wildlife, trees or culture,” remarked another attendee. 

Since the termination of the MoU, CALS has come up with an environmental management committee – a first in South Africa. This committee represents key roleplayers with an interest in the mine. The EMC will see to it that CoAL stick to their licence terms.

News - Date: 03 May 2013

Isabel Venter

Isabel joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in 2009 as a reporter. She holds a BA Degree in Communication Sciences from the University of South Africa. Her beat is mainly crime and court reporting.

Email: [email protected]