Grand schemes: Johan Fourie owns a game lodge, and is also the deputy chairperson of Save Our Limpopo Valley Environment. (Photo: James Puttick)
It’s midday, and the sun is blazing in Makhado, but a khaki-clad Johan Fourie is unperturbed as he traipses through his lush bushveld paradise: his game lodge in the scenic, sensitive Limpopo Valley. “This is cool weather for us,” he smiles.
He is dwarfed by an ancient giant that towers over his property. “It’s amazing, isn’t it,” Fourie says, gazing up at the 1 200-year-old baobab tree.
But the deputy chairperson of Save our Limpopo Environment (Solve) fears he may soon be forced to leave his home and abandon his hunting and tourism business here.
The government’s controversial proposed Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is earmarked for 8 000 hectares of land adjacent to his property on the N1.
The Chinese-backed metallurgical cluster, the country’s largest single planned SEZ, will consist of 20 industrial steel and ferrochrome components, fed by a 3 300MW coal-fired power plant.
That this proposed southern site, home to more than 109 000 trees, including thousands of protected and sacred baobabs, marula and mopane trees, and described as “near pristine bushveld wilderness” by the project’s environmental consultants, could become an industrial wasteland, alarms Fourie.
“I just don’t want to see this area destroyed,” he says.
‘Grand water schemes’
Solve has mounted a long, fierce battle against the “mega-toxic, water-guzzling” project. The biodiversity-rich Limpopo Valley, Solve says, is an internationally acknowledged critically water-scarce region. “There’s simply not enough water for massive industrial development and extensive coal mining,” says Fourie.
The Musina-Makhado SEZ will require more than 80-million cubic metres of water a year, but water scarcity in Limpopo has resulted in the government crafting plans to obtain water from Zimbabwe and of building a dam on the Sand River.
“When it comes to water, they’ve got these grand schemes that somebody sits behind a desk thinks of, but it’s so far-fetched. If you haven’t secured water, how can such a project run?” Fourie asks.
Coal mines, too, will burgeon, hunting for the black gold lying under his feet to feed the project. “If the SEZ starts, we’re going to have at least 10 or 15 different water-intensive coal mines stretching to Tshipise and right up to Alldays,” Fourie says.
The final environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the first phase of development — site clearance — was released last month by Delta Built Environmental Consultants for the Limpopo Economic Development Agency.
According to the EIA, it has not been confirmed where the water to run the mega project will come from, even though this is crucial to determine whether the project will be successful.
‘Water for development, but not for us’
This season’s good rainfall has filled the Limpopo River and other local waterways, and the valley is bursting with life.
“The government will say ‘Look at all this water: let’s open the SEZ because all the dams are full’,” says Fourie. “But you must remember it’s the first time in 20 years. Before this year, we had a drought for seven or 10 years. I had to feed my animals for six months a year to keep them alive … There are communities here that have to walk kilometres to fetch water.”
About 25km away, in Tshikuwi village, Isaac Sekwama sits in the shade in his dusty yard, showing his stack of water containers. The water supply here is irregular.
Safeguarding the future:
Isaac Sekwama believes
the government cares more
about the SEZ than the
people who live on the land. Photo: James Puttick.
“When there’s no water, we have to buy from someone in the village who has a borehole,” he says, as chickens cluck around his feet. “There’s been good rains, and we harvest rainwater falling from the roof.”
Sekwama is a land reform beneficiary of the Mulambwane community, which owns the ancestral land where the SEZ is to be located. He says doesn’t understand why a thirsty project like the SEZ is being proposed when local communities suffer without water.
“It feels as if the government cares more about this project than the people,” Sekwama says. “We don’t want our crops, our air and livestock to be destroyed. Our land can be used for generations to come.
Breaking point
In a May 2020 paper, Water Risks of Coal-driven Mega Projects in Limpopo, the University of the Witwatersrand’s Victor Munnik describes how water resources in the Limpopo River, a closed catchment, are already at breaking point.
“While it is unclear exactly how and where the SEZ plans to source its water, except that it will come from ‘the Limpopo River’, all possible plans carry long-term risks, mainly to poor rural water users,” the paper reads.
The plan to transfer some water for the construction phase from the Zhovhe Dam in the dry Matabeleland, across the Limpopo in Zimbabwe, would cut off the commercial revival of agro-businesses and threaten subsistence and smallholder farmers dependent on the river and its alluvial aquifers.
If the project relies on the Tuli Karoo aquifer — the only realistic source for the amount of water required in the SEZ — “it will deplete it, leading to the collapse of thousands of livelihoods, causing long-term damage to the aquifer, and put an end to development plans,” Munnik says.
Water security in the area is already affected by climate change, as witnessed in rising temperatures and increasing rainfall variability, leading to more droughts and floods.
The project’s factories “can be expected to pollute water sources in the area given the weak state of water quality regulation in South Africa and the experiences with steel-making pollution in the Vaal Triangle,” Munnik says.
“An increase in coal mines … will lower the regional water table, causing community wells to dry up, a phenomenon already witnessed by rural communities in the area.”
Climate effects
The project is expected to emit about one billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent over its lifetime, which is 6%-10% of South Africa’s carbon budget, says the EIA.
“This means it will likely jeopardise South Africa’s obligation to meet climate-change commitments,” says Michelle Koyama, an attorney at the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER).
The final EIA indicates that a coal-fired power station should be a last resort, could become a “stranded asset”, and should only be constructed if there is carbon capture and storage. “The investors do not deem [carbon capture and storage] necessary,” Koyama says.
Agriculture is constrained by water scarcity in the Limpopo Valley but the region does produce citrus, tomatoes and potatoes. There is a concern that agriculture will be negatively affected by the Musina Makhado SEZ due to dust pollution and competition for limited water resources. Photograph: James Puttick.
Earthlife Africa director Makoma Lekalakala says the SEZ will make a “mockery” of the country’s plans for a just transition to low-carbon development.
The EIA describes how climate change’s potential effects — increasing temperatures, prolonged periods of drought, biodiversity and agricultural loss and significant water-related constraints — could entrench the vulnerability of the area’s people.
They already suffer high unemployment levels, low levels of education and poor service delivery. “This will increase poverty and prevent communities from building climate resilience, specifically in the long-term,” the EIA says.
Fourie, who has lived in the Limpopo Valley since 1991, feels the unfolding effects. “It’s the hottest I’ve ever experienced. Our drought periods are longer … We just don’t get enough rain.
“In the early 1980s, if it was 33°C, it was like a heatwave,” quips his cousin, Jaco Lyon, who runs a game farm on the border of the Musina-Makhado SEZ. “Now, that’s a cold front for us. Last year, the highest temperature was 48°C.”
Need for jobs
The EIA says the SEZ’s objective is to create 53 800 jobs, 95% of which will be local jobs.
Lekalakala says this figure has suddenly soared from 22 000. “One of the questions we’ve asked is, ‘What kind of jobs?’ … You cannot be given a job to desecrate your ancestral place.”
Protecting the land: The owner of Greater Kuduland Safaris, Howard Knott, says he and his family have spent 40 years trying to keep the land pristine. He views the SEZ as a short-term fix that will create long-term problems. Photo: James Puttick
People in informal biodiversity-based work, like the mopani worm industry, tourism and agriculture, could lose their jobs as the project will clear a pristine piece of land, uproot trees, have a negative visual impact for tourism and may compete for water with the agricultural sector, Koyama says.
At his game farm in Tshipise, Howard Knott tells how he and his family have spent 40 years trying to keep the land pristine. “Can you imagine this could all be gone? This SEZ is a short-term fix that will create long-term problems.”
His wife, Shan, agrees. “This is not an industrial area — it’s agriculture and wildlife. This is a gem of the country they want to bulldoze for industry. It will just cause more poverty, more damage. It’s going to create a monster.”
According to the EIA, the potential negative effects on the natural, cultural, palaeontological and agricultural environment of the site “may likely outweigh” the positive effects associated with the very high social and economic development benefits after applying mitigation measures.
On 4 March, the Limpopo department of economic development, environment, and tourism, in a letter to Delta Built Environmental Consultants, stated that the EIA process is “deemed insufficient or incomplete”.
“The public participation process was conducted in English, and not in any of the local languages (Sepedi, Xitsonga and Tshivenda), thus denying the interested and affected parties to meaningfully participate … Sources of water and energy supply have not been explicitly outlined. The environmental impact assessment practitioner did not recommend a decision on the project.”
This development, says the letter, must not commence, “prior to the department deciding on the application”.
David Tshidzumba is the youth leader of the organisation, which is fighting to stop a controversial SEZ being developed in the area. (Photograph: James Puttick)
“So many local people still don’t know about this SEZ,” says David Tshidzumba, the youth leader of Solve. “There are such huge implications, but it’s as if it’s been done under the rug and sold to people on jobs. This project is unthinkable … but it won’t happen on our watch.
What are special economic zones?
A special economic zone (SEZ) is an economic development tool used by the government to promote national economic growth and exports by using targeted support measures to attract foreign and domestic investments and technology.
These geographically delineated and fenced areas allow the duty- and tax-free import of raw and intermediate materials for processing and re-export.
The Musina-Makhado SEZ is the largest single planned SEZ development in the country. It will contain a coal washery, a coking plant, a thermal plant, a ferrochrome plant, a ferromanganese plant, stainless steel, high manganese steel, high vanadium steel, and lime and cement plants.
Cabinet approved the designation of the Musina-Makhado SEZ in July 2017, and the department of trade and industry designated the Musina-Makhado SEZ southern site in December 2017.
‘Unprecedented foreign control’
The Musina-Makhado special economic zone (SEZ) master plan describes how 70% of the final products will be exported to China, with South Africa receiving 10% and SADC receiving 20%.
Many of China’s belt-and-road-initiative projects “heighten the African dilemma of extraction of natural resources that also raise carbon pollution levels”, says a December paper by the African Centre for Citizenship and Democracy at the University of the Western Cape.
Community members of Tshikuwi Village near the Musina Makhado SEZ have to collect water from communal taps, which often run dry for days due to erratic and scarce water supply in the area. There is a concern that the area’s water resources are not sufficient to supply the large-scale industrial needs of the SEZ, and that local communities and agriculture will suffer as a consequence of the scarce resource being diverted to the scheme. Photo: James Puttick.
The SEZ is a perfect case in point, it says, because it will be the first in South Africa to be operated by a foreign (Chinese) company, Shenzhen Hoi Mor Resources, which has committed to investing $3.8-billion.
“This will mean an unprecedented level of foreign control,” the paper reads.
The paper details how the company’s chief executive, Yat Hoi Ning, is on the Interpol watchlist after being charged with fraud by a Zimbabwean mining conglomerate, Bindura Nickel Corp, and the Freda Rebecca gold mine group, both listed in London.
According to the paper, of the proposed industries, nearly all are carbon-intensive, environmentally destructive and a threat to people’s livelihoods.
This article has been updated to reflect that Isaac Sekwama is not part of the Mulambwane Community Property Association.
[/membership]