Despite decades of legal battles to secure land and mining rights, the people of the Richtersveld remain bereft of a share in mining wealth under their ancestral lands. Now the community is angry at a new challenge over the Green Hydrogen and Boegoebaai mega-project that again threatens to run roughshod over their rights.

Protect the West Coast (PTWC) has raised a red flag over a diamond mining application that will destroy 3,184 hectares of critical biodiversity biome in the Northern Cape. We encourage you to sign up to our new public participation platform Ripl to add your voice to our concerns regarding this potentially devastating application.

The public participation tool Ripl launched by Protect the West Coast in Cape Town this week has opened the door to a new era of democratic oversight over the granting of mining and prospecting permits on the West Coast. 

Protect the West Coast (PTWC) has added a range of eco-friendly bags and backpacks to its merchandise collection. Made from upcycled materials such as Bedouin tents, used sails and advertising banners, these unique, durable bags are available in a wide range of colours and styles that combine sustainability with functionality – and come with a lifetime warranty.

A record turnout of 250 runners raised more than R25,000 for the work of Protect the West Coast during the annual Run West event between the Olifants River and Doringbaai.

The public is encouraged to test PTWC’s new public participation portal Ripl by commenting on a double application by Trans Hex. The mining company has applied for a marine diamond mining right offshore of two eco-sensitive areas and a multi-commodity prospecting right in multiple concessions totalling 321km2 along a huge 80 km swath of the West Coast. The giant crawling machines they intend to employ potentially threaten fisheries, marine and coastal ecology and three marine heritage shipwreck sites.

Protect the West Coast (PTWC) has launched Ripl, a revolutionary new digital platform designed to simplify and expand public participation in mining on South Africa’s West Coast. Developed in response to the outdated and often inaccessible Public Participation Process (PPP), Ripl empowers citizens to voice their concerns through a simple interface, ensuring that mining applications are scrutinised more effectively and the industry is held accountable.

A team from Protect the West Coast (PTWC), including activists, filmmakers, legal experts, and !Ama leaders recently travelled to the Richtersveld to document the catastrophic damage from mining, while engaging with the community about solutions to their plight. The devastation they saw prompted an urgent letter from PTWC to the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), Dion George, to raise the alarm.

Fish by the Sea has again applied to prospect on the beach for diamonds near Brand-se-baai, adjacent to an area designated as critically biodiverse. This application adds more potential for beach mining on the West Coast, which is already under severe pressure. The new application is a revised submission of the same area, replacing what was publicised by Protect the West Coast (PTWC) in July. Thanks to public input, the first application was deemed inadequate. The revised version is now open for public comment.

The company Twiga Global Ore has applied to prospect for copper ore, rare earths, zirconium ore and iron ore on a series of farms that fall within the internationally recognised Succulent Karoo Biome – the only arid-zone biodiversity hotspot in the world.

Protect the West Coast (PTWC) has learned that three great surf breaks on the Namaqualand coast near the Orange River Mouth at Alexander Bay in the Northern Cape have been destroyed forever, apparently by rock-based cofferdams used in the mining industry to extract diamonds from inshore zones, with no signs of them stopping soon.

A company, Fish By The Sea, has applied to bulk-prospect for diamonds on a pristine and fragile stretch of the West Coast already heavily burdened by a deluge of prospecting applications and existing mining operations.