Limpopo communities challenge Chinese-owned coal and smelter cluster in Vhembe biosphere
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Conservationists, farmers and rural communities in northern Limpopo are fighting a string of Chinese-owned coal mines and factories planned inside the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, arguing that the projects are being approved piecemeal without proof of a sustainable water supply.
A coalition of conservationists, commercial farmers and rural communities is challenging a multibillion-rand industrial programme taking shape in northern Limpopo, where Chinese-owned coal mining and smelting projects are being developed inside the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, Daily Maverick reported.
Kinetic Development Group has already excavated a large coal pit in pristine bushveld near Tshipise. It forms part of a chain of coal mines and factories planned along the Limpopo River under a provincial policy to open a new coal and industrial frontier. The plans are backed by the Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (Ledet) — the same provincial authority that promotes the projects and rules on their environmental acceptability.
The Vhembe reserve covers about three million hectares, 84% of which remains in a natural state, and takes in the Mapungubwe World Heritage Site, the Makuleke wetlands, part of Kruger National Park and the Soutpansberg Mountains. Within it, Kinetic-controlled MC Mining's Makhado colliery is entering production, while linked industrial plans include coke ovens, power generation and smelters. Kinetic's one-million-tonne-a-year ferrochrome smelter was granted approval in May this year.
For Living Limpopo's Lauren Liebenberg, the campaign is being fought on two fronts: challenging the industrial expansion and holding its government backers to account. The coalition has gone to court, investigated compliance breaches, filed objections and petitioned ministers. It argues that connected projects are being assessed in separate pieces, allowing their combined water demand and environmental consequences to fall between the approval files.
In June, lawyers at Richard Summers Inc, acting for Living Limpopo, Earthlife Africa, the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, The Herd Nature Reserve, Elephants Alive and the Lepidopterists' Society of South Africa, lodged a submission challenging the environmental assessment's treatment of water, pollution, biodiversity and public participation. The objection contends that the combined impact of the water-intensive industrial project and Kinetic's open-cast coal mining across 100,000 hectares has been inadequately assessed.
Liebenberg said the consequences would fall hardest on rural households and smallholders who depend on wells and boreholes for drinking water, livestock and irrigation. A falling water table, she warned, would not arrive as an abstract environmental impact but as a community well that no longer reaches the water.