Sunset lights up the sky at the Ndumo Game Reserve (Photo: Cathariné Hanekom)
By Tony Carnie - 30 Sep 2024
‘Happy birthday’ is on hold as the reserve faces off a mining application, despite existing legal protections against prospecting and doubt that anything of value will be found.
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Conservation managers in one of South Africa’s oldest game reserves are preparing to fight off a coal and oil shale prospecting venture inside the reserve, just as they celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Located on KwaZulu-Natal’s northern border with Mozambique and Eswatini, the remote Ndumo Game Reserve was proclaimed a nationally protected nature reserve in 1924.
The 10,000ha wildlife haven was established mainly to conserve the abundant animal, fish and waterbird populations in one of the country’s largest river floodplain systems, at the confluence of the Usuthu and Phongolo rivers.
Home to 430 avian species – the highest bird count in the country – Ndumo’s global conservation value was underlined by its official recognition as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance.
Now, a little-known company named Chikopokopo Zibaa Construction and Projects has applied for prospecting rights over 19,800ha that includes the western portion of the Ndumo reserve and other sensitive habitats nearby.
Chikopokopo plans to drill at least 12 exploration boreholes (each to a depth of about 1,000m) while searching for “agate, coal, perlite, pseudocoal and Torbanite/oil Shale”, according to its environmental impact assessment (EIA) application.
Read more: Ndumo Game Reserve: The complicated balancing act of subsistence farming and nature conservation in KwaZulu-Natal
The company is headed by Mpumalanga-based entrepreneur Kleinbooi Lucky Mtsweni, who is listed as a director or former director of at least 12 companies, including the Million Dollar Foundation, Ingakara Mining, Fourplus Mining and Shakinar Construction.
Searches of the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission database show that most of the companies were deregistered over the past two years.
The reserve’s hippo population has dropped by nearly 70% over the past 40 years. (Photo: Rick Matthews / Big Banana Films)
Chikopokopo was registered in 2014, with Mtsweni’s current co-directors listed as Siyanda Zindela and Mphumeleli Biyela.
Recent posts on Mtsweni’s LinkedIn profile suggest that he also has interests in running trucks to Eskom’s coal-fired power stations. Should his latest coal exploration venture succeed, Ndumo is just 260km by road from the lucrative coal export harbour of Richards Bay, where long queues of coal trucks continue to clog up the N2 freeway.
A mobile drilling rig (Photo: Basia environmental report)
However, the provincial nature conservation agency, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, argues that the prospecting application is fatally flawed (at least as far as Ndumo is concerned) because the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act expressly prohibits prospecting and mining within the boundaries of a nature reserve.
Ezemvelo has criticised the EIA application by the Pretoria-based Basia Environmental Consultants group for its “grossly incomplete” public consultation process.
The conservation agency notes that, apart from recognising Ezemvelo’s direct mandate to protect Ndumo from harmful activities, Basia should also have consulted the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, the National Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and other groups or organisations engaged with the local community or transfrontier conservation projects with neighbouring Mozambique and Eswatini.
Map of the Ndumo reserve. (Image: Sheena Carnie)
In addition to the new coal/oil shale exploration threat, a large part of Ndumo’s eastern section has also been damaged over the past decade by illegal subsistence farming plots along the Phongolo River floodplain.
Ndumo once contained the third-largest hippo population in South Africa, but studies show that their numbers have dropped by nearly 70% over the past 40 years. It also supports a large Nile crocodile population and previously had a dense population of rhinos. The last rhinos were removed in 2017 because of the high poaching risk.
From a community perspective, the Phongolo River system supports one of the most important traditional fisheries in southern Africa and hosts the richest fish fauna of any river system in the country (48 species, five of which are SA Red Data species).
Ndumo is the only section of the floodplain that has legal protection and it provides sanctuary to fish that later migrate to restock depleted pans outside the reserve.
A line of pelicans soars above the lakes and pans of the Ndumo Game Reserve. (Photo: Rick Matthews / Big Banana Films)
Giant sycamore fig trees tower above the landscape at Shokwe Pan in Ndumo. (Photo: Rick Matthews / Big Banana Films)
‘Costs exceed benefits’
Ezemvelo says it has engaged with a professional geologist, who believes that the mineral commodities sought by Chikopokopo are unlikely to be found in the targeted area “and, if they do, will be of low value or uneconomic to mine”.
The environmental costs of mining low-value commodities in this internationally protected reserve would therefore far exceed the benefits.
Dr Digby Gold, an independent consulting geologist from Durban, said he very much doubted that oil shale would be found at relatively low depths.
Read more: Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve threatened by ‘get-rich-quick’ coal prospecting rights
Read more: Mining with royal approval causes devastating damage to fragile Eswatini nature reserve
Chikopokopo would need to drill down to nearly 5,000m to find oil shale/gas beneath the Lebombo Mountains, he said, noting that this mountain range has a much thicker layer of basalt than the Drakensberg.
In his 148-page basic assessment report, Basia environmental consultant Tshia Malehase suggests that there would be no exploration drilling within 100m of any “sensitive areas” and that relevant stakeholders had been asked to state potential concerns they had about the project.
All these comments and responses had been collated in a register attached to the study, he says.
Flamingoes spread their wings on take-off from Nyamithi Pan in Ndumo. (Photo: Rick Matthews / Big Banana Films)
Pelicans in the lakes and pans of the Ndumo Game Reserve. (Photo: Rick Matthews / Big Banana Films)
However, when Daily Maverick requested a copy of this register, Malehase did not provide it, saying the consultation began in August 2023 and had “lapsed” a year ago.
“The site notices and newspaper advert were placed and also BID and supporting documents were provided to Ndumo Nature Reserve, however, there were no comments received from them nor the public. The chief of the area was also consulted.”
In an email, we asked Malehase and Mtsweni to comment on why Chikopokopo had included the western section of Ndumo Game Reserve when such areas are legally excluded from mining in terms of national laws.
Malehase said that, although part of Ndumo was included, “this is earmarked as a No Go area with a proposed Buffer Zone of 100m from sensitive environments… There is no prospecting work that will be done on Ndumo Game Reserve.”
Read more: Mordor at the gates: The ploy to strip-mine Selati Game Reserve
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Read more: Makgabeng – sacred but imperilled with Platinum mining set to destroy it
Despite this assurance, however, the inclusion of land inside the game reserve and the depth of the proposed exploration wells have raised several questions about the company’s intentions.
Ezemvelo insists that the application boundaries must be amended to exclude Ndumo completely. The agency also notes that large parts of the remaining exploration area form part of the proposed Usuthu Gorge Community Conservation Area and the Lubombo Ndumu-Tembe-Futi Transfrontier Conservation Area.
Mpumalanga entrepreneur Kleinbooi Lucky Mtsweni heads Chikopokopo Zibaa Construction and Projects. (Photo: LinkedIn profile)
In 2015, the agency also passed a resolution calling for a 5km-wide buffer zone or “no-go mining zone” around its major parks to safeguard them from incompatible land uses such as mining and industrial development.
“It is strongly recommended that Basia advise your client, Chikopokopo Zibaa Construction and Projects (Pty) Ltd, not to proceed further in the application area under consideration and to seek a less environmentally sensitive area.
“In our view, it is unfair to allow the applicant to proceed with paying for additional studies for the prospecting application when mining in this location is likely to be fatally flawed,” Ezemvelo concluded. DM
It certainly cannot be approved. 