ConCourt rejects plan for coal mine

In a short, sharp smack-down, the Constitutional Court has rejected an attempt by would-be coal mining company Atha-Africa Ventures to draw it into a plan to mine coal in a highly sensitive protected grassland and water catchment area in Mpumalanga.

The company wanted the Constitutional Court to grant it leave to appeal against a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) decision not to hear its challenge to a lower court judgment that blocked the mining proposal.

This judgment related to a decision taken in 2016 by then environmental affairs minister, the late Edna Molewa and then mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane to quietly grant Atha-Africa permission to develop its proposed 15-year Yzermyn underground coal mine within the Mabola Protected Environment in Mpumalanga.

This 8 772-hectare protected area was formally proclaimed in January 2014 under the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act because of its ecological sensitivity as a high-yielding, highly strategic water catchment area within a high-altitude, threatened grassland ecosystem.

But the two ministers’ decision was reversed when a coalition of eight non-government environmental and social justice groups opposing the mining brought an application in the High Court in Pretoria.

This court also turned down Atha-Africa’s application for leave to appeal its judgment.

In April this year, the mining company approached the SCA, but the court refused to entertain the application for leave to appeal.

The latest court decision has been welcomed by environmental and social groups. – Republished from Groundup.org.za