Welcome to Pondoland, South Africa’s least economically developed region. What the region lacks in infrastructure, it makes up for in natural resources. Ecologists have named the region the Pondoland Center for Plant Endemism, home to many species found nowhere else in the world.
While beautiful, Pondoland is also home to violence and strife. Transworld Mining, an Australian company, has plans to build a large-scale titanium mine in the town of Xolobeni, home to coastal dunes with a view of the Indian Ocean. The local people have been engaged in a multi-year struggle to oppose the mining project that would destroy and overcome much of their land.
In 2007, local residents formed the Amadiba Crisis Committee to challenge the mine in court. Sustaining the Wild Coast, a group funded through the Environmental Defenders Collaborative, has also supported the local grassroots resistance to the mine. The locals claim that they were not informed of the project, nor gave consent for the construction of the mine on their land.
Years in, and the struggle has turned violent.
In 2016, Sikhosiphi ‘Bazooka’ Rhadebe, chairman of the Amadiba Crisis Committee was violently assassinated when a Volkswagen Polo arrived outside of Bazooka’s home and two men posed as police dragged him outside. When he resisted, they shot him eight times in front of his 17 year old son, then left. There have yet to be any arrests and no progress has been made in the investigation of his murder.
Other members of the community resisting the mine have also been threatened.
Just this year, the Environmental Defenders Collaborative awarded Sustaining the Wild Coast with a grant to support ongoing legal proceedings and community engagement in opposition to the Xolobeni mine. A first ruling in November 2018 affirmed the community’s right to Free, Prior, and Informed consent over the proposed Xolobeni project, and the community and its legal representations are now engaged in the appeal process.
More recently, members of the Amadiba community and their advocates have been the target of a SLAPP suit, a tactic increasingly used by corporate actors to try to silence those who oppose their business operations.
The mining company also claims that the only group opposed to the mine is a small number of radicalized youth community members. In truth, the mine is almost unanimously opposed by all generations of the community. This grant will support transportation for elderly community members to meetings with the Minister of Mineral Resources and to court proceedings, as well as travel for members of the Amadiba Crisis Committee to other mining affected communities in South Africa.
This grant is emblematic of the work the Environmental Defenders Collaborative is funding worldwide. With an aim to support environmental activists by increasing access to funding and strategic resources, the Environmental Defenders Collaborative is responding to the growing risks associated with protecting the environment and demanding justice. In the case of the Xolobeni mine, we hope that with this support, the local activists will be able to finally celebrate success with a cancelled mining project, while maintaining their safety in the process.
Stay tuned for more from the Collaborative.
Photo Credit: KRISANNE JOHNSON FOR YALE E360