VELE COLLIERY OFFSET FLAW

IN OCTOBER 2014, the DEA, SANParks and CoAL of Africa signed a “historic” biodiversity offset agreement for the controversial Vele Colliery to the tune of R55 million over the life of the open-cast coal mine, located in the buffer area of the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site. The agreement was to promote the development of the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape so it “benefits the environment, the local economy and communities”. But in “Biodiversity Offsets: Lessons Learnt from Policy and Practice”, a 2015 report by Fauna & Flora International for South Africa, the researchers note how the mine was closed temporarily in 2010 for noncompliance with environmental and water regulations but reopened after lengthy negotiations. “The conditions under which the company was permitted to resume operations included a requirement for a retrospective ‘offset’. “A legally binding ‘biodiversity offset agreement’ was eventually signed.” But offsets required retrospectively to rectify a transgression, are not offsets in the “truest sense because opportunities for avoidance and mitigation have been entirely missed. “Such instances do, however, have the potential to disproportionately influence perceptions of transparency and accountability and tarnish the extent to which offsets are perceived as a meaningful mechanism for mitigating the residual impacts of development.” Robert Krause, an environmental justice researcher at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, which represented the Save Mapungubwe Coalition, agrees. “The new (draft national biodiversity offset policy) does seem to acknowledge the case of Mapungubwe and take those lessons into account. “It contains a very clear principle that offsets are not appropriate justifications for projects with fatal environmental flaws.” – Sheree Bega