For more detail, here is a  three part video:

Part 1: Re-membering. http://youtu.be/2zRQxSOUm2k

Simon Gear of 50|50 gets an update from SWC social worker John Clarke on the status of the Xolobeni Mining Rights and N2 Wild Coast Toll Road for SABC’s environmental program 50|50. Local residents speak their minds and hearts about development imposed from above.

This is a re-versioning of the report broadcast on 26 September 2011, with additional background footage showing 50|50′s outstanding role over the years in actualising not only environmental rights but civil rights as well.

Part 2: Re-visioning. http://youtu.be/Nyv4pnEn_3U

Sustaining the Wild Coast and South Coast residents collaborate again to open up the Wild Coast for the revival of eco-tourism now that the death grip of the pro-mining interests has been loosened. South African civil society shows it can light candles, not only curse the darkness, by re-visioning an eco-tourism future, including walking trails from the Wild Coast Sun resort, and the restoration of the Mtentu River Lodge situated on the “Jewel of the Wild Coast” the Mtentu estuary.

But the N2 Wild Coast ‘Troll’ Road offers little local benefit and Planet Saving Wild Lawyer Cormac Cullinan is instructed by AmaDiba residents to take their case against the road to court, believing it will be “Too Great a Toll”. The film launches the “Too Great a Toll,” 2012 Calendar to raise funds for court action, not simply to stop the road, but to promote their democratic right to decide their local destinies locally.

Part 3: Re-claiming. http://youtu.be/i8-t-eBpNNw

Showcases the “Too Great a Toll” calendar produced to raise funds for high court action by amaMpondo residents to stop the N2 Wild Coast ‘Troll’ road. WildAwake photographer Cheryl Alexander and her production team hike their way from Sigidi to Port St Johns. “The making of…” features a selection of Cheryl’s stunning pics interspersed with ‘candy-ham’ behind the scenes clips, put to a music soundtrack by Claire Johnston (Mango Groove) and Jeff Maluleke from their album Starehe – an African Day. Meaning ‘a state of peace, tranquillity, contentment’ in Swahili, Starehe was a creative collaboration by them “to support fundraising causes close to our heart”.

Wild Coast on 50/50

Part One of a two part update on the Wild Coast Mining and ‘Troll Road’ will be broadcast today, Monday 26 Sept, on 50/50 on SABC 2 starting at 7.30pm.

Part 2 will go out the following week on 3rd October. This will feature plans for the revival of eco-tourism, and the launch of a fund raising campaign to raise funds for local residents to challenge the N2 Wild Coast Toll road authorisation. To keep up-to-date with the developments of Sustaining The Wild Coast, who are promoting sustainable and long-term development of this area, please like them on Facebook HERE and follow them on Twitter HERE, and encourage others to do the same…

John G I Clarke

In addition, SWC advocates against culturally and ecologically inappropriate developments such as the proposed mining at Xolobeni and the recent decision on the N2 toll road extension, which they are presently opposing. See various articles here: 1, 2 and 3.

SWC are looking to spread the word about what they are doing and raise some funds for expected court battles. I think they have done a very admirable job with Xolobeni. Please like them on Facebook HERE and follow them on Twitter HERE, and encourage others to do the same…

I just thought you might like to celebrate in this good news.

For the moment SWC are extremely pleased that social and environmental justice for the amaMpondo people seems to have been upheld.

SWC will comment further once we have had a chance to consider at length Minister Shabangu’s conditions for re-consideration of the mining application.

Regards Val

___

Minister Susan Shabangu has informed Sarah Septhon, legal representative of the Amadiba Crisis Committee that the mining rights awarded in July 2008 to Australian owned Transworld Energy and Minerals (Pty) Ltd (TEM) and the Xolobeni Empowerment Company (Pty) Ltd  (Xolco) have been revoked.

Accordingly the complaint lodged by the Amadiba Crisis Committee with the Public Protector last week against the Minister for the long delay in announcing her decision has been withdrawn.

The Amadiba Crisis Committee and Sun International together lodged objections to the award of the mining rights in September 2008.   A Special Task Team chaired by senior ANC MP Nkosi Patekile Holimisa found that the award of mining rights was in several respects in violation of legislated requirements.

The Minister has however left the door slightly ajar to allow the applicants a ninety day period in which to re-apply.

The attached documentation explains the Ministers decision.

Comment from the Amadiba Crisis Committee and the NGO Sustaining the Wild Coast which has supported them, will be forthcoming, but I offer the following comment in my professional capacity as the social worker who has been privileged to work with local residents for the past five years.

STATEMENT

The decision of Minister Shabangu closes a very long and frustrating chapter in the quest of the Amadiba residents for sustainable livelihoods.

To put it colloquially, a large and aggressive “dog” has been removed from the manger that it has occupied over the past three years, obstructing the local residents from pursing sustainable livelihood’s from nature and heritage based eco tourism.  Although the ‘dog’ has been given the chance to reapply for control over the ‘manger’ it is now inconceivable that it would ever be able to take up occupation again, because over the next six months plans are afoot to revive the once celebrated community based eco-tourism initiative known as Amadiba Adventures.

With the COP 17 Talks taking place in six months time in Durban, together with the Wild Coast Sun Resort and other partners, the local residents will now ensure all available tourism accommodation on the Wild Coast is fully booked with international visitors who will be invited to celebrate an Avatar like victory of an indigenous people who cherish their natural environment and ancestral traditions.  They declared the rich titanium deposits on the Wild Coast ‘unobtanium’ after they saw that film, and have gone one better than the NaVi warriors by using non-violent, constitutional means to oust the mineral addicted invaders.

The Amadiba Crisis Committee is now planning a huge celebration and plans to reconstitute themselves and the Amadiba Peace and Development Committee to facilitate healing and peace building in a community that was once a peaceful haven, but which has over the past five years seen constant tension and conflict.

While I welcome the Ministers decision I cannot understand how the Minister can conclude that the applicants took all reasonable steps to consult with the relevant parties.   The Human Rights Commission found that consultation was woefully lacking as far back as 2007, and the only remedial ‘consultation’ process that I am aware of was when the BEE partner Xolco submitted forged and fraudulent names of some 3000 local residents claiming their free and informed consent.   Minister Shabangu also has in her possession a long interview with a former Xolco member who resigned in protest together with two other directors after they realised that he had been co-opted into what he described a “corrupt scheme to sell the land of the people”.

Moreover it is worth noting that during the Local Government Elections ANC members from the mining affected area nominated candidates who were opposed to the mining to contest the elections.  The voters followed suit by overwhelmingly electing the ANC candidates with their declared anti mining position, rather than the rash of independent candidates who suddenly appeared, backed by the pro-mining lobby.

I assume that Minister Shabangu was waiting for the elections before announcing her decisions, and hope that she is reassured that there can be no local political backlash.  The Mbizana municipality is one of the poorest in the country and the local council needs support to make full use of the astounding natural and heritage resources at its disposal to promote jobs and development.

Notwithstanding these reservations, I wish to personally congratulate the Honourable Minister bringing some measure of closure.  She has had to juggle a very hot potato which has not cooled down over the past two years since she assumed office.

___

John G I Clarke

Consultant Social Worker, Development Facilitator, Writer.

THE STAR, BUSINESS REPORT “Wild Coast plans show preference for mining”

DAILY DISPATCH “More concerns over Wild Coast mining”

THE HERALD “Mining task team merely passes buck“

I have written about the proposed mining of the Xolobeni area. See blogposts here, here and here. The local mining company says that it will bring employment to the area. Those opposed say it will bring destruction. I feel that an area of such biodiversity and uniqueness should be preserved as a heritage site. This will allow for sustained livelihoods and the preservation of the natural environment.

Here are some recent articles detailing:

Cancelled hearings

Shady dealings in ‘getting support’ from the local community

Opposition Facebook Group if you would like more info

SWC Chair

Box 44, Harding

Contact cell 083 4416961

swcoastval@gmail.com

XOLOBENI MINING IS A TEST CASE OF HOW MUCH COMMITMENT GOVERNMENT HAS TO LOCAL DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES.

Should local destinies be decided locally? That is the heart of the issue around the Wild Coast Xolobeni mining debate.

The Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) has announced that it will hold a legal hearing in Durban to hear oral submissions as to why amaPondo communities are opposed to titanium dune mining along the Wild Coast. DMR say the submissions will be taken into account in the Minister’s decision whether to give the go ahead for the mining application. This sets a precedent for DMR, who do not usually consider oral appeals.

No doubt many complicated legal arguments will be given at the hearing. No doubt weighty considerations will be given as to whether DMR has complied with legislative requirements, whether adequate public consultation has taken place with communities, and whether South Africa should be allowing this sort of mining operation to take place by a foreign Australian mining company.  Particularly when this type of mining has been disallowed in the home country of Mineral Resources Commodities, the Australian owned mining company that have applied for a mining license in the area. And particularly when the Wild Coast region is considered one of South Africa’s most environmentally vulnerable and ecologically important areas, where local communities have built up a long tradition of life based upon the fruits of the land, and are dependent upon the soil and the water and the natural resources of the place for their subsistence livelihoods.

The arguments that will be heard at the DMR hearing no doubt are important and necessary.

But at the heart of the issue is a much more simple matter.  To what extent are local people free to decide on their own local destinies?

AmaPondo Communities who live in the areas that will be mined are adamant that they do not want the mining. They say it is contrary to their deeply held ancestral traditions, will erode their social fabric, and undermine their ability to sustain themselves as they have done for centuries.

These Wild Coast communities, over three years of interaction with Sustaining the Wild Coast, have revealed what sort of ‘development’ they want for their region. It is not the sort of development that is being foisted on them by the likes of Australian speculative mining companies and DMR under the name of ‘progress’ and ‘poverty relief’. AmaPondo communities argue that the change that mining will bring to their environment will destroy their local social structures and customs and traditions. They do not want a development path that will damage the environment to which they are so closely connected. The amaPondo do not want a development path where they become the downtrodden lackeys of ‘outside’ interests.

Rather, they want to be active participants in developing small scale community livelihoods projects based around eco-tourism, extend their farming capacities, and develop small community based business ventures. They want to improve their schools’, they want improved health facilities, and better maintenance of the existing local road infrastructure. They want to be fully involved protagonists in their own future, shaping a development path that is compatible with their cultural identity and the natural environment that has supported them for generations. They do not want to have someone else’s idea of a ‘future’ foisted upon them.

This issue is clearly not a case of ‘mining or no development’ as supporters of mining tend to argue. It is a choice between mining, which is being pushed by people who do not live in the area to be mined and so will not directly bear the consequences of the impacts and disruptions to their lives that mining will bring, and other types of development that are favoured by local people.

Ironically, this is not the first time the AmaPondo have faced a battle to have a say in how their local destiny unfolds.

In 1959, under the guise of ‘development’,  ‘poverty upliftment’ and ‘self rule’ the Nationalist government passed the Bantustan’s Act and set about re-organizing the amaPondo’s traditional system of tribal rule by democratically elected chiefs and headmen, into a system of state appointed magistrates and tribal leaders who were little more than government stooges. The Nationalist government also initiated ‘betterment schemes’ which removed the small scale peasantry off their scattered plots of land into state sponsored village settlements.

In an article of the time Ben Turok* commented “This threat of dispossession of their land the African people regard as the removal of their last shred of security”.  Turok ironically observed after a tour to the districts that the Eastern amaPondo who had resisted ‘betterment’ seemed to remain better off than their Western Pondoland counterparts who had succumbed to the ‘betterment schemes’.

So deep was the amaPondo resentment at interference over their right to be engaged participants in a democratic form of local government, that they instigated a rebellion in 1960 that came to be known as the Pondo Rebellion. Although that rebellion was summarily and violently crushed by the government of the day, one might suppose that the amaPondo might have felt the battle had finally been won in 1994, when South Africa’s first democratically elected government ousted the Nationalist party.

Yet this was not to be.

Once again they are faced with an initiative that threatens to dispossess them of the rights to their land and deprive them of choice in the outcome of their own local future. Again this initiative is presented under the guise of ‘development’ and ‘poverty upliftment’.

Time will soon tell if the amaPondo have finally won their battle to be protagonists in their own destiny, or if they will once again be faced with subjugation by a government more concerned with exerting centralized authority and decision making, than in fulfilling the wishes of ordinary people to have a say in how local development processes unfold.

*Ben Turoks article, The Pondo Revolt, can be found on the SWC website www.swc.org.za

28 January 2010

The LRC to make oral submissions on behalf of the Amadiba Crisis Committee at Xolobeni

For immediate release

On 8, 9 and 10 February 2010, the Minerals and Mining Development Board will receive oral submissions on behalf of interested parties involved in the appeal against the Minister’s decision to grant a mining right to Transworld Energy Minerals (TEM) at Xolobeni in the Eastern Cape.  The Board will then make recommendations to the Minister of Minerals and Energy.

The LRC will be representing the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) who are appealing the granting of the mining right. One of the grounds for the appeal is that the mining right was granted to TEM without sufficient and reasonable consultation with the Xolobeni community as an interested and affected party.  Counsel for the ACC Advocates Gilbert Marcus (SC) and Isabel Goodman will be submitting written heads of argument that will be made available to interested parties.

Recently, on 28 September 2009, the LRC submitted two expert reports to the Minister on behalf of the ACC. The reports were in support of the ACC’s appeal to the Minister to set aside the mining right. One of the reports provided that the heavy mineral mining operations planned by TEM have been discontinued in other jurisdictions such as Australia and New Zealand. TEM is a subsidiary of the Australian group Mineral Resources Commodities (MRC).

The details of the hearing are as follows:

Date:            8, 9 and 10 February 2010

Time:             8 February (12h00 to 16h00), 9 and 10 February (9h30 to 15h00)

Venue: Department of Mineral Resources KZN Regional Office

333 Durban Bay House

Smith Street

Durban

For further information contact:

Legal Resources Centre

Sarah Sephton

046-6229230/0834107646/

sarah@lrc.org.za