Stephanie Dippenaar
NATIONAL Party cabinet ministers Pik Botha and Dawie de Villiers appear to be on a collision course over strip mining in the Northern Province’s environmentally sensitive Madimbo corridor.
While the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs, for which Botha is the responsible minister, issued a prospecting permit to a diamond-mining company in May, De Villiers, Minister of Environment Affairs, joined hands this week with Northern Province MEC for Environment and Tourism Maris-Stella Sexwale-Mabitje and environmentalists who are opposed to it.
De Villiers, accompanied by Sexwale-Mabitje and National Parks Board chief Robbie Robinson, visited the Matshakatini Nature Reserve on Tuesday to find out for himself what ecological damage mining would cause, should it be allowed to go ahead.
“It is important to weigh up all the options as far as land use is concerned. But when it comes to this particular area, it is my conviction, and that of Ms Sexwale-Mabitjie, that it has a unique potential,” De Villiers said.
“This potential can only be fully developed if it is based on nature-related tourism and hunting based on
At stake is the Madimbo corridor of 45 000 hectares which stretches along the Limpopo River from the Kruger National Park, and which includes the 28 000-hectare Matshakatini Game Reserve.
Both De Villiers and Sexwale-Mabitje “noted, with great distress, recent developments relating to the granting of the prospecting permit”. De Villiers said although an appeal was still pending and he did not want to “jeopardise the legal process”, he believed mining should not be allowed in the park.
“We are concerned about the prospect of having mining in the areas. We don’t believe everything has been properly evaluated.”
Sexwale-Mabitje said Matshakatini “fits firmly in the conservation and tourism strategy of the Northern Province”, while Robinson said: “You can pick up a few diamonds which is going to create wealth, but that wealth is on the short term.
“If you develop ecotourism, the community adjacent to the Kruger National Park will have jobs which are
Botha’s ministry responded this week that “the question on the impact of prospecting on the environment is a complex one” and that “an environmental tribunal with a judge and an equal number of members from both the environmental side as well as the economic side” could help to decide on such matters and “take them out of the political arena”.