VISUAL ESSAY : Postcards from Xolobeni

Postcards from #Xolobeni

The Xolobeni community’s Amadiba Crisis Committee is taking the Department of Mineral Resources to court, requesting that it rules that no licence to mine the area can be granted without the community’s consent. This photo essay gives a voice to a rural community at risk of being destroyed for corporate profit.

The Xolobeni community has been fighting proposed titanium dune mining for nearly 20 years. The mineral-rich sand of the Wild Coast is seen as an opportunity for international mining companies to profit, with only the resistance of local residents standing in their way. They stand to lose everything; should mining proceed it will displace hundreds of people from their ancestral land, cut off their access to the sea, pollute surrounding villages, grazing lands and water sources, and destroy grassland, estuarine and marine ecosystems. It will also necessitate the relocation of ancestral graves and in this way sever the Amadiba people from their cultural roots.

For more than a decade, Australia’s Mineral Resources Limited has persisted in seeking to scoop 22 x 1.5 km of dunes from Xolobeni’s coast, ignoring repeated objections from the community. Despite claims that they have divested from the Xolobeni Mining Project, MRC’s 2017 annual report indicates that the company continues to hold 56% shares in the project through its South African subsidiary Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources(TEM). TEM’s application for a mining licence has only been halted because of an 18-month ministerial moratorium, imposed following the assassination of Bazooka Radebe. The application is likely to resume when the moratorium expires.

On 23 April 2018 the #Amadiba_Crisis_Committee is taking the Department of Mineral Resources to court. They are requesting that the court rules that no licence to mine the area can be granted without the community’s consent.

▻https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-04-20-postcards-from-xolobeni
#Afrique_du_sud #mines #résistance #procès #photographie #cartes_postales #terre #extractivisme #titane #justice

cc @daphne @albertocampiphoto @philippe_de_jonckheere