Photo credit: Rob Symons (Flickr)
Activists in South Africa secured an important victory in May 2022 when a Pretoria High Court judge ruled that a coal mine firm cannot expand a local mine.
For years, community members and activists have been facing off against the Tendele mining company whose operations are polluting the environment in the KwaZulu-Natal province, known as South Africa’s most ecologically diverse province. Mining activities are also threatening traditional livelihoods and have already displaced entire communities from their homes.
Since November 2018, those community organizations and activists, including Global Greengrants Fund’s grantee partner, the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organization (MCEJO), along with allies from Global Environmental Trust, Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDN) and ActionAid South Africa, have been leading a legal battle to halt the expansion of the Somkhele mine in particular.
The activists accused Tendele of inadequate prior consultation before their expansion of the mine and the violation of their environmental, land, and traditional rights. The Somkhele mine expansion would have displaced approximately 200 families without adequate compensation and would have impacted local livelihoods, including crop farming, which is a vital part of the local food and economic infrastructure, due to loss of farmland, for example. Tendele had also run its open pit coal mine without a water permit until 2014, leading to a significant diminishment of groundwater supplies—local communities feared that expanding the mine would lead to similar encroachments on pivotal resources.
Global Greengrants has supported the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organization with two grants, both of which helped local communities in the fight against coal mining and its negative economic, societal, and environmental impacts. Our most recent grant helped provide capacity building workshops which bolstered community activism against the coal mine. Global Greengrants Fund and the Environmental Defenders Collaborative (EDC), a pooled fund housed at Global Greengrants Fund, have also supported All RISE, Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice, to provide legal resources to communities facing off against existing and proposed extractive developments, including the Somkhele mine, in recent years.
This tenacious activism and organizing paid off in May 2022 when a judge ruled on the side of the activists and overturned a previous ruling that had approved Tendele’s expansion, citing how Tendele had failed to properly follow the legal processes for public participation and prior community consent required to obtain mining rights.
South Africa has robust laws requiring “meaningful consultation” between extractive companies and communities (e.g. Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act (1996) and the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (2002)), which were cited in the ruling. The Judge noted that not only did Tendele fail to adequately consult with impacted communities, but their “attempts to justify their exclusion of groups … was nothing short of egregious.”
While both a long-overdue and triumphant win for the community and other activists struggling to ensure the sustainability and safety of their lands and community in the face of extractive projects, this victory came at a high price. In October 2020, gunmen shot and killed activist and mine critic Fikile Ntshangase, who was also one of the leading members of MCEJO. To date, no one has been prosecuted, but community members say that her death was linked to her activism.
Unfortunately, this type of violence is common among environmental defenders – in that same year, Fikile was one of 227 people around the world who lost their lives defending their lands, resources, and ecosystems. The Environmental Defenders Collaborative provided emergency support to Ntshangase’s family following her murder – for urgent security needs – and also provided funding for a film project that aims to capture her legacy and advance a counter-narrative to assertions that she was working against South Africa’s economic interests.
Although this ruling was an important victory, one that came at great cost for the local activist community, the battle is far from over. The judge has ordered that the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy further evaluate and consider the question of the mine’s expansion, meaning that this victory could be overturned in the future. Tendele will also need to address and rectify its failure to include proper community consultation during all of its mining activities, a much longer and more difficult process given how long and deeply rooted Tendele’s work has become in the local economy. And while the expansion of one mine has been delayed at present, Tendele has a long track record of rights violations and illegal activity, including relocating graves without complying with regulations or prior consultation. Activists also worry that Tendele will exert pressure to sway the Minister’s decision. Still, this legal victory demonstrates the power of local communities to carry out and achieve justice. Supporting frontline communities with flexible funding that helps them respond to challenges and opportunities as they emerge and over the long haul, as Greengrants and EDC did by providing support for capacity building, organizing, and legal advocacy, is critical. When activists have the resources they need, they have the power to create meaningful change—philanthropy must continue to support that change.
Sources:
https://www.groundup.org.za/article/judge-blocks-mine-expansion/
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/the-wheels-came-off-south-africa-court-nixes-coal-mine-extension/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/sep/17/the-of-fikile-the-woman-who-took-on-a-coal-mine