The pristine province of Mpumalanga risks becoming a prospector’s dream and an environmentalist’s nightmare.
The Mail & Guardian has learnt that nearly 300 mining applications and 3 000 prospecting applications were received last year, and at least three prospecting licences were awarded in protected areas of Mpumalanga.
Environmental activist Koos Pretorius said he did not know of any that had been rejected so far.
Under current legislation, the Department of Minerals and Energy is the ruling authority over policing the environment at mines, while the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism is the arbiter of all environmental impact assessments (EIAs).
Parliament is still debating whether the Department of Minerals and Energy will have to comply with stricter conditions in future. If Parliament approves the need for stricter conditions, future mining environmental management would fall under the National Environmental Management Act, instead of the controversial Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act. The minister of environmental affairs would also handle environmental appeals against mining activities.
The issue has been the bug-bear of environmentalists, who believe that asking the Department of Minerals and Energy to rule on environmental matters is like asking the fox to guard the hen house. It is also an open secret that the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism believes it would be better suited to rule on mining EIAs.
Organisations such as the WWF and the Botanical Society of South Africa said they are ”deeply concerned” about the current situation.
”The Department of Minerals and Energy has neither the necessary objectivity nor the skills and capacity to ensure a fair environmental process for new mining operations,” said Mark Botha, conservation director of the Botanical Society.
In Wakkerstroom, a popular birding destination in Mpumalanga, environmentalists are gearing up for a court battle after the Department of Minerals and Energy awarded DMC Coal Mining prospecting permits for coal in a sensitive wetland. And in frog haven Chrissiesmeer, environmental groups said they are gravely concerned about mining permits handed out ”willy-nilly”.
Mava Scott, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s acting chief director of communications, said the department believes that having two EIA systems or environmental management systems is not ”desirable”.
”For this reason the two ministers and departments have been involved in a long negotiation process in an attempt to arrive at a single system, driven by central standards and norms,” he said.
He confirmed that his department is only working with the Department of Minerals and Energy as a commenting authority.
He added that the Mpumalanga environmental department was given the opportunity to comment on the current coal applications in the province.
Thérèse Brinkcate, manager of the Ecosystems Partnership at the WWF, said the Department of Minerals and Energy’s lack of due diligence on the environment was evident in the recent granting of prospecting permits in Mpumalanga.
”Any consideration of mining in this pristine area is shortsighted from a purely economic point of view, let alone the environmental considerations,” she said.
The Department of Minerals and Energy did not respond to the M&G‘s questions.