Wild Coast

Can the Transkei afford to keep the Wild Coast “wild”.

May 07, 2008 Edition 1

TONY CARNIE & BABINGTON MARAVANYIKA

THE battle between supporters and opponents of two major development proposals along the Wild Coast intensified yesterday when a group of local residents, councillors and chiefs journeyed to Pretoria to lobby in favour of sand mining and a new toll road. (more…)

Guy Rogers

A COMMUNITY group and an environmental organisation have issued a joint call for “political leadership” to resolve the tense stand-off around the disputed Xolobeni mine site on the Wild Coast. (more…)

SUBMISSIONS by three government departments were handed over at a Human Rights Commission hearing yesterday as part of the commission’s probe into charges that the community is not being consulted about the Xolobeni mining project in Pondoland. (more…)

Zanele

I am a tourism lecturer and this topic was discussed with my second year students. It is amazing how much our students are aware of the need to sustain our environment. What is not clear here is how strong is the power of the community? Does the community really have the last say? Those who support the mining should understand that jobs come and go, but once the environment has been destroyed , there is no second chance.

This is a very difficult question with many political and legal levels,and
part of the reason why the mining rights application has caused such
controversy.

Legally, the land in question is not owned by the communities who live
on the land, although they have lived there for many, many generations. It
is communal land held in trust by the Department of Land Affairs on behalf
of the communities and technically therefore, the Department of Land
Affairs (State) holds the ‘custodinainship/ title’ of the land. >
Any decision that the Dept Land Affairs makes about the land is
supposed to be made only after full consultation of the communities who reside upon
the land.

The area falls under the municipal jurisdiction of the OR Tambo
Municipality, which holds the ‘economic power’ of the area, in that
state funds for regional development are directed through local
municipalities, and ‘development’ projects such as road infrastructure/ provision of
electricity etc are controlled from municipal level. Some areas inland
in the municipal area are thought to be in favour of the mining, because
it will obviously not directly affect them ( they do not live on the land
to be mined) and they see benefits in terms of mining revenue’s/ job
opportunities for themselves, but of course mining will mean that those communities living on the mined land will loose many of the benefits they currently get from the land so it will have huge negative impacts on those communities who live on area earmarked for mining.

Although OR Tambo municipality is the means through which state
development is driven, many of the local rural communties still feel more
comfortable with, and have a allegiance to, traditional methods of consultation
where the local chiefs are seen to be the custodonians of communal and
tribal authority. However, in Eastern Cape, unlike Kwazulu Natal, the local
chiefs have no legal title or custodonianship over communal land. ( In KZN
the local chiefs have legal power as custodonians of communal land and
therefore no decisions can be taken about land use without local chiefs
permission). One therefore has a situtation in E Cape where the preferred
historical method of decision making of many traditional rural communities ( ie
by traditional tribal council) is undermined by provincial and state
ordance that gives no recognition to the preferred communal decision making
processes, but gives these powers to municipal and goverment officials
who often do not even come from the local area.

This means that the system becomes highly open to abuse. Although in
theory decisions about land use are meant to be made with the full
consultation and approval of communities, in reality this does not always happen in an unbiased, totally open manner conducive to free public participation
and democratic decision making processes. Part of the reason being that
communities are not always given unbiased/ objective information about
various projects from which they can make an informed, educated
decision. A controversy about the EIA public participation process is that project
proposers ( eg mining company) are required to hire and pay for the
EIA consultants, so, although EIA consultants are meant to be objective,
the fact that they are employed/ paid for by project proposers raises
questions about the extent to which EIA consultants are able to operate in a
totally neutral, objective manner. ( If EIA consultants gave results that
conflicted with too many project proposals they would probably soon find
themselves unemployed!)

The system leaves all sorts of leeway for various parties to manipulate
the situation in various ways, or for correct processes not to happen due
to incompetent/ inefficeient public servants tasked with overseeing the
process. Alleged contraventions and neglect of various of these is why
the HRCommission is now being called to adjudicate the matter. The issue
opens up many questions about human rights and environmental rights as
enshrined in the constitution, state interventions, and the way public processes
of decision making are conducted and organised, and the rights of communal
land dwellers.

It would seem that the current political setup and land rights issue
undermines the ability of communal land dwellers to determine the
future of the land that they have been occupying for centuries, this in
contravention of constitutional rights to self detemination, free information and
expression, education, and other basic human and environmental rights.
Because communities lives are closely intertwined with land use, a
change in land use will have profound impacts on the social
co-hesion, traditions, economies and cultures of Wild Coast
Communities.

Hopes this gives some understanding of the complexity of the
situation. From SWC side, it would be very interesting for SWC if tourism
students could be set a project/ assigment to suggest ways to ‘kick start’
tourism in the Wild Coast region in a way that was conducive to promoting local
communal land rights, local social upliftment and participation, and
conservation. We would be very interested to hear any idea’s along
these lines.

We attended the recent HRC Subpoena Hearing attended by representatives from the Departments of Minerals and Energy, Environmental Affairs and Tourism and Land Affairs at the Human Rights Commission Offices in as observers, and on behalf of the Amadiba Crisis Committee and Sustaining the Wild Coast Association, we have the following statement for immediate release.

We welcome Commissioner Leon Wessel’s decision, as chair of the subpoena hearing held today at the offices of the Human Rights Commission, to reserve the right of the HRC to adjourn the meeting and reconvene it at a later date.

In order to ensure a properly informed and fully contextualised decision making process we further call upon the HRC to reconvene the meeting in the Amadiba Tribal Administrative Area where the mining development is proposed to occur, so that the Honourable Ministers, government officials and the media, can experience first hand the Amadiba Coastal area of the Pondoland Wild Coast, and to meet the five affected coastal communities face to face.

We were disappointed that the Ministers did not attend the hearings themselves, and delegated the matter to departmental officials and urge the Honourable Ministers concerned to personally lead their delegations to the reconvened meeting. The highly tense situation requires political leadership as well as HRC mediation in support of the joint effort of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, Sustaining the Wild Coast and the South African Faith Communities Environment Institute joint efforts to create a climate conducive to the development of sustainable livelihoods for residents on the Wild Coast.

In addition we call on the HRC to invite the Minister of Provincial and Local Government and his departmental officials responsible for the implementation of the new Local Economic Development (LED) Sustainable Community Investment Programme (SCIP0 to the reconvened subpoena hearing.

Finally while welcoming the HRC’s intervention to ensure due compliance with legal requirements by government departments, we urge the Commission not to lose sight of the substantive complaint lodged by the Amadiba Crisis Committee, and to make a finding in respect of the ACC’s allegations one way or the other.

Nonhle Mbuthuma (0763592982)
John Clarke (0836080944)

Photograph.
Caption. Nonhle Mbuthuma speaking to journalists at the HRC Subpoena Hearing.

The following report was released by the SA Human Rights Commission on 29 October 2007 as an interim assessment of the issues arising from a complaint alleging gross violation of human rights by proponents of the Xolobeni Mineral Sands Venture. (more…)

By: Christy van der Merwe

The South African Human Rights Commission on Tuesday adjourned the meeting regarding the Xolobeni community, which was supposed to be attended by the Minister of Minerals and Energy, the Minister of Environmental affairs and Tourism, and the Minister of Agricultural and Land Affairs, adding that the meeting would be reconvened at a later date. (more…)

On behalf of the Amadiba Crisis Committee and Sustaining the Wild Coast Association, we have the following statement in response to on the HRC Subpoena Hearing held today at the HRC Offices in Johannesburg, attended by representatives from the Departments of Minerals and Energy, Environmental Affairs and Tourism and Land Affairs. (more…)

Monday, 21 April 2008

Following ongoing conflict in the Xolobeni community with regard to the Mining Licence Application of MRC Ltd, Mr Patrick Caruso, brother of MRC CEO Mr Mark Caruso requested an urgent meeting with the Amadiba Crisis Committee, which took place on Sunday afternoon 20 April 2008 at the Mdatya SS School in the Amadiba Tribal Administrative Area in the Eastern Cape. (more…)

XOLOBENI — Tensions are running high between Wild Coast communities and the mining company that has its eye on the titanium-rich sand dunes in the Xolobeni area.

Stakeholders have been waiting anxiously since January to hear whether Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica will give these mining activities the green light. (more…)

With respect to the attached report obtained from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) I have the following statement to offer, in my capacity as a professional social worker contracted by members of the affected community to advocate for “social justice and uphold and protect fundamental human rights as enshrined in the South African Constitution” (Policy guidelines for Course of Conduct, Code of Ethics and Rule for Social Workers, SACSSP). (more…)

“Under no circumstances whatsoever can an economic process, or interest, be above the reverence of life.”
Manfred A Max-Neef.

This assertion by Chilean ‘barefoot economist’ Manfred Max-Neef was offered as the conclusion to his address to a packed audience at the Gordon Institute of Business Science two years ago, as an overriding principle for what he terms a “trans-disciplinary economics of sustainability”. (more…)

A tribute to Tony Abbott

AMELIA DE MILANDER

PORT ELIZABETH. – Belanghebbers, inwoners en omgewingsbewustes wat tans in afwagting sit vir die minister van minerale en energie, me. Buyelwa Sonjica, se besluit oor die toelating van sandmynbedrywighede langs dieWildekus, gaan nog tot minstens einde Februarie moet wag. (more…)