A plan to mine for diamonds along the Limpopo River is causing the biggest environment controversy since St Lucia, writes Eddie Koch
ON the banks of the Limpopo River between Messina and the Kruger National Park there lies a stretch of South Africa’s last wilderness — baobab thickets, tropical flood plains, riverine forests, a diversity of bird life, and free-ranging herds of buffalo and elephants – – that is set to become the focus of the country’s biggest environmental controversy since the St Lucia
The military, a multinational diamond mining corporation, a coalition of green organisations and at least three dispossessed rural communities (each with different interests) are the main contenders in a complex struggle that is looming over how this 80km- long Madimbo Corridor, and its rich mix of natural resources, will be used now that it is no longer needed as a cordon sanitaire against total onslaught from the
At present the South African National Defence Force manages the corridor, which straddles the border with Zimbabwe, as a conservation area and buffer zone against illegal immigrants who flood over the frontier. Military authorities have accepted that Venda and Tsonga communities removed from the area in the 1960s and 1980s have legitimate restitution claims — but will rather pay these people compensation and continue to use the area as a training ground for reconnaissance
But last year the army lifted a ban on prospecting for valuable minerals in the corridor and the Madimbo Diamond Corporation (called the Duo Corporation in some reports) — a 50-50 venture between local businessmen and an Australian mining company called Moonstone — was given a permit in May this year to look for diamonds that may have been washed down the Limpopo from volcanic pipes located further upstream.
This news has created an uproar among green groups with the National Parks Board and the Wildlife Society claiming that one of the subcontinent’s last areas of true wilderness is about to be strip-mined and destroyed. “If mining goes ahead it will most likely blow any future ecotourism ventures off the map, not to mention the irreversible ecological and archaeological impact,” says a statement issued by the Wildlife Society. The National Parks Board has lodged an objection to the prospecting permit.
But Richard Bluett, a director of the Madimbo Mining Corporation, says his company will ensure that prospecting and mining operations will follow strict environmental guidelines. “Most of the sites where we believe the diamonds are deposited are covered by mopani scrub which we will easily be able to restore. We won’t take out baobab forests nor will we mine where there is riverine forest or other sensitive ecological systems,” he told the Mail & Guardian.
Researchers at the Mineral and Energy Policy Centre, an independent NGO that is helping the African National Congress develop a mines and mineral policy, say it is possible for diamond mining to exist alongside conservation and tourism. “Alluvial diamond mining does not have heavy ecological impacts and can be tightly controlled,” says John Bristow, a geologist who did doctoral research on mineral deposits of the Northern Transvaal.
“The process does not require chemicals and is remarkably clean although it uses a lot of water. In a country that needs to promote development for 40 million people, it is not helpful to promote an emotional rejection of mining in favour of conservation. The two can exist in the Madimbo area if the matter is handled properly.” He adds that Moonstone would be guided by strict environmental guidelines that govern Australian mining companies.
Caught between the military, the environmental groups and the industrialists — lobbies made up mainly of wealthy middle class members — are groups with less opportunity to make their voices heard: the rural people who were forcibly removed from Madimbo.
Last weekend Chief Mutale told a group of journalists who visited the village with the Wildlife Society that he is opposed to mining on his tribe’s traditional land, mainly because the Madimbo Corporation had failed to consult him before applying for its permit. But while he was addressing an official press conference, other residents in the village said they favoured mining and pointed out that the nearby Tshikondeni Coal Mine, located on the Kruger Park border near their village, was a major engine for economic growth in the
Further to the east are the Makuleke people who resided in the northern Pafuri district of the Kruger Park and a strip in the east of the Madimbo Corridor called Mabiligwe.
They built villages along the river valleys of the area — living off the fish, animals, wild fruits, mlala palms that could be used to make a nutritious wine, and rich agricultural soils on the floodplains — until they were forcibly moved in 1969 so that the Kruger Park could be extended to the banks of the Limpopo
“You should tell these people who like wildlife that they should come here and speak to us before they make statements about how our land should be used. And when they come, they should remember we suffered greatly when our villages were destroyed and our homes burnt down so that Kruger could be made bigger,” a Makuleke tribal leader called Gilbert Nwaila told the Mail &
“Even today we are the ones who feed those wild animals with our livestock. (A reference to predators who routinely break the fence and kill goats and cattle in the Mabiligwe resettlement village). Now that we have a chance to get some wealth from that land, we are being told to put even more animals there. It will be very difficult to convince our people that wildlife is better than mining — and it will be even more so if we are not spoken to properly.”