Mining companies eye the last unspoilt strip of the Western Cape’s west coast

The applications to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy are for prospecting rights on the farm Karoetjies Kop 150, which extends six kilometres inland and 15km along the coast north of the Soutriver.

Professor emeritus Merle Sowman, former head of the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town, has repeatedly called for a strategic environmental assessment of the cumulative impacts of the expanding mining footprint along the entire West Coast. ‘It’s very worrying. There is massive pressure to allow more mining because the government sees this as economic growth potential, but no one is seeing the big picture,’ she says.Nekwana Trading Enterprise wants to prospect for sillimanite, monazite, manganese ore, leucoxene, kaolin and garnets.

It says a one-kilometre ‘buffer zone’, where no drilling or activity will take place, will be placed around the river estuary and coastline. SRK says it is applying for the area where De Beers/West Coast Resources held diamond prospecting rights in the surf zone – up to about 32 metres out to sea from the low water mark and an average 800m wide coastal strip.

‘The presence of an authorised and environmentally responsible company on site will also help to mitigate the problem of illegal diggers, crayfish poaching, littering, illegal hunting, and plant collection, a common occurrence along the west coast,’ SRK states.

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