Pic: Sustaining the Wild Coast: Current dune mining operations near Richards BayPrevent open cast mining on the pristine wild coast. If you feel this is important, please sign this petition straight away as it is going to be submitted today, 19th September.

For more info see the Sustaining the Wild Coast website

From the email doing the rounds:

The South African Department of Minerals and Energy has handed the rights to destroy the pristine Transkei coastline to an Australian mining company. As is usual in underhand deals like this, jobs are promised to the locals to minimise opposition, when in actual fact the locals will be left with the legacy of the destructive effects of open caste mining for generations, and the promised jobs will go to skilled outsiders.

Locals have seen through the charade, and local leaders, such as AmaMpondo king Mpondomini Sigcau are mobilising against the deal. There's a good chance of it being overturned, as the extent of the local opposition has caught Mineral and Energy minister Buyelwa Sonjica by surprise, and she has since claimed that "a mistake was made, of not consulting properly, not by us as a department, but by MRC. We need to correct that".

The type of mining they will be using is called "Open Cast" mining. How that works is they use monster graders to scoop up the top 20 meters of ground over 100's of kilometers and then process it and dump it back in heaps. It's one of the most destructive forms of mining for the environment. Considering that the wild coast is one of South Africa's last remaining untouched and pristine coastlines, it has a massive potential to be an international destination for tourism and to provide the local inhabitants a sustainable income for generations to come. Part of the argument put forward by the mining company and others set to profit from this destructive venture, is that the mining will provide jobs for the impoverished locals. But as it turns out, the mining processes employed will require mostly skilled and technical labor that will be imported into the area. And all the profits generated will be exported, leaving the locals a legacy of destruction and poverty with in a generation and not much to show for it but a poisoned desert.