Bid to halt mining at estuary
OLIFANTS RIVER: CONSERVATION-WORTHY AND IS LISTED AS A CRITICAL BIODIVERSITY AREA
Assessor’s ruling of no significant consequences of test holes is disputed.
The future of one of South Africa’s most important biodiversity areas – the Olifants River estuary on the West Coast near Lutzville – could be decided at a crucial meeting today.
Various government departments and conservation agencies will come together at a meeting hosted by CapeNature to try to finalise a consensus proposal for legal protection for the estuary.
This issue has been argued inconclusively for more than a decade.
Formal protection of the estuary – one of the largest on the SA coastline that is listed as a Critical Biodiversity Area (CBA) and ranked in the top-five estuaries based on a conservation-worthy index – has now become urgent because of the threat of increased mining operations in the region.
The proposed format of the new protected area is a provincial nature reserve as the core, managed by CapeNature and including certain state-owned properties that qualify for protection, such as “Coastal Public Property”.
The national environment department has been looking at a second option in terms of the Olifants River Estuary Management Plan, investigating properties feasible for declaration as special management areas under the National Environmental Management: Integrated Coastal Management Act.
The West Coast has been subjected to massive diamond and mineral sands beach mining operations.
A new threat is a major prospecting rights application for two farms on the northern boundary of the Olifants River.
This application was submitted by Mineral Sands Resources (MSR), the local subsidiary of controversial Australian mining company Mineral Commodities Ltd (MRC) that operates the nearby mineral sands mine Tormin.
MSR was granted a prospecting right for zircon, ilmenite, garnet, leucoxene and rutile on the two properties by the department of mineral resources in May last year, but two appeals against this were partially upheld in April.
The department of mineral resources ordered the mining company to revise its basic assessment report, which had been compiled by controversial consultant Adriaan du Toit, who had claimed to be independent (a legal requirement) but who was later shown to have extremely close links to MSR and MRC.
New consultants Strand-based Site Plan Consulting, were appointed with a brief to produce an updated assessment report. The new report had to be subject to a round of public participation.
Their draft updated assessment report, incorporating findings and recommendations of a 2009 Olifants River estuarine assessment study by Anchor Environmental Consultants, was released last month, with a closing date of January 20, 2020.
The updated report confirms the “extremely sensitive” estuary bank marshes and flood plains within the prospecting right area and the west bank of the river, all clearly identified as “definite ‘nogo’ areas”. A 500m “no-go” zone between the prospecting drilling and the western boundary of the estuary boundary should be one of the conditions of approval.
Overall, however, it confirms the findings of Du Toit, to the effect that prospecting operations that involve the drilling of numerous test holes, will not have any significant negative environmental consequences or impact on the estuary and its other users.
But this benign assessment is currently being challenged by local groups, including some traditional small-scale fishermen.
A heated meeting held in Ebenaeser on November 26 as part of the public participation process ended abruptly with a walk-out by most of those attending, leaving just seven in the audience to listen to the consultants.
Stephen van der Westhuizen of Site Plan Consulting, who hosted the meeting, said he and his colleagues had done everything required of them and their full presentation would cover all the issues.
The fishermen had “incited” others to leave, which was “unfortunate”.
Van der Westhuizen accused them of having “a hidden agenda”.
His company had only assessed the effects of prospecting and this would have “absolutely no impact” on the estuary, he insisted.
“The fisher community is not going to be affected – those are the findings of the study.”
Veteran fisherman and former leader of the informal river fishing group Koos van der Westhuizen said they had walked out because they felt they were not properly acknowledged in the public participation process and their views were not taken into account.
He said their previous efforts in the public participation process had led to “a dead-end”.
“We wanted to show our displeasure and unhappiness.”
CapeNature spokesperson Loren Pavitt said they were aware of the current prospecting right application. Pavitt said any future prospecting or mining should not be allowed to damage the sensitive estuarine ecosystem, the protected area which was to be established, or the buffer around the protected area.
Republished from org.za
A 500m ‘no-go’ zone should be a condition
Groundup.