Because the West Coast faces a deluge of prospecting and mining applications that require serious legal firepower to combat, PTWC has launched a crowdfunding campaign.
Please help us fund legal action against mining companies on the Cape West Coast that continue to flout environmental laws, marginalising communities and degrading the environment.
In some instances, mining rights are renewed for periods of up to 30 years using long-outdated environmental management plans that are obsolete, and fail to take into account the most up-to-date science and modern socio economic considerations related to mining. This places vast tracts of coastline at serious risk, which places severe pressure on communities who subsist off land and marine-based food sources.
In the absence of proper oversight and governance, the job is left to civil society to ensure that mining activities are done lawfully, and that the companies keep to their promises to help communities with their social and labour plans and land rehabilitation once they finish mining, not to mention sharing some of the wealth they generate on indigenous Khoi and Nama lands in a tangible and restorative way.
Applications for prospecting and mining along the West Coast are increasing at a scary rate, and are spreading south towards Langebaan. This means that hundreds of kilometres of nearshore ocean, sensitive coastline and sandveld at risk, including various estuaries, the Olifants River estuary being one. The Olifants estuary, a RAMSAR global bio-diversity hotspot, lies on a knife’s edge that tips it towards ecological collapse. Our legal team needs resources to tackle the deluge and turn the tide on unscrupulous activity.
We have managed some success already in forcing Environmental Impact Assessments, and wider public participation and consultation, and are confident we can make a huge difference in ensuring that the West Coast remains a thriving and abundant region for the environment and the communities who live there.
Link to campaign can be found HERE
Words by Steve Pike.
The Protect the West Coast (PTWC) stand at the Wavescape Film Night in Kirstenbosch was feverishly busy as members of a sellout audience at the Galileo Outdoor Cinema in Kirstenbosch flocked to view and buy PTWC merch. More than 750 people attended the screening of three films celebrating surf culture and ocean conservation.
Protect the West Coast (PTWC) encourages the public to sign up as an Interested and Affected Party (I&AP) via www.ripl.co.za by March 10 for a new application by Richwill Diamonds to prospect for diamonds on a stretch of coast in the Northern Cape that includes the farm Strandfontein 559, where the company has been charged with trespassing by landowners Braam and Therese Nieuwoudt. PTWC experts have raised concerns about the effect of invasive prospecting on the beaches and terrestrial vegetation, the broad long-term implications on this sensitive biodiversity area, and public beach access should it lead to a mining right.
OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA, 1996
Everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being; and to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation; promote conservation; and secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.
© 2025 - Protect The West Coast
