The Mines of Mordor: PTWC aerial photo team captures hidden destruction of West Coast
A media crew from Protect the West Coast recently teamed up with top marine conservation photographer and pilot Jean Tresfon to shoot stills and video footage of mining operations – and the damage they are wreaking – of the entire West Coast from the open cockpit of his gyrocopter, the first time such a project has ever been undertaken.
Words by Steve Pike.
The Mines of Mordor. The Tronox mine is just one of many mining operations on the West Coast Image: Jacque Smit.
A special airborne operations team from Protect the West Coast (PTWC) has captured the true extent of the destruction wrought by illegal mining and a criminal lack of rehabilitation on the West Coast.
The PTWC crew – comprising CEO Mike Schlebach as logistics backup and an airborne team of Cape Town gyrocopter legend Jean Tresfron of environmental pilot outfit The Bateleurs and PTWC media guru Jacque Smit – accomplished the mission in five flights over two days, logging almost 1,500km.
Getting the craft ready for the flight. Image: Jacque Smit
To our knowledge, a project of this kind has never been undertaken before on the West Coast and what it revealed was deeply concerning.
“The idea behind the project was for PTWC to capture video footage and images of the West Coast from Lamberts Bay to Alexander Bay with a special focus on all mining operations in the area,” Schlebach said.
“The content will be stored as a resource that can assist mining oversight specialists and scientists, various activist organisations, the media and ourselves, which is key to our work in stopping illegal mining and preserving what is left of this amazing coast.”
Armed with a GoPro and his Canon 7D-MK2, Smit flew the mission with Tresfon, shooting video and stills, while Schlebach followed in a back-up vehicle to meet them at the end of each leg with fuel collected on the way. Tresfon’s AutoGyro MT-03 has a maximum flight time of 2h45m plus 45 minutes of legal reserve, so each flight had to be less than 300 km.
“While we have not yet compiled all the footage, the trip was a great success, and we look forward to sharing this much-needed imagery with the world. A very big ‘thank you’ to Jean for his outstanding effort – we are incredibly grateful,” Schlebach said.
Tresfon and Smith began the journey at Tresfon’s home base, Morningstar Flying Club, inland from Melkbosstrand near Cape Town, before landing at an airfield in Lamberts Bay, from where the mission began in earnest.
How does one even begin to rehabilitate this? Image: Jacque Smit.
“The first leg took place in calm and blue skies, with not even a hint of fog,” said Tresfon. However, that soon changed just past Strandfontein, just as the mining areas from De Punt hove into view. A strong northeasterly berg wind, hot and turbulent, made for a bumpy ride that depleted their fuel reserves faster than they had hoped, “but we battled gamely along, alternating between areas of extreme natural wilderness and beauty, and areas of complete devastation, resembling a post-apocalyptic battlefield. Abandoned and rusting tractors, gravel sorters and other assorted mining gear littered the coast.
“We alternated between areas of extreme natural wilderness and beauty, and areas of complete devastation, resembling a post-apocalyptic battlefield.” – Pilot Jean Tresfon.
“Massive craters and cofferdams, some filled with bright orange water, dotted the coastline at old, abandoned mines. Clearly, very little attempt, if any at all, is made at post-mining rehabilitation. Eventually we arrived at Kleinzee Airfield, landing into a blustery northeaster.”
Huge craters litter the coast and inland. They stretch as far as the eye can see. You would be shocked at how many they are. Image: Jacque Smit.
Smit said that during the flights it was difficult to absorb the sheer extent of the destruction, made worse because it was interspersed with stretches of pristine coastline, which made you realise what is being lost: “In some places, the cliffs are cut away and you’re faced with horrific scenes – a moonscape as far as the eye can see, like a bone-chilling scene at Mordor (the defiled, dead land JRR Tolkien describes in Lord of the Rings). The amount of destruction and lack of rehabilitation is heartbreaking.
“In some places, the cliffs are cut away and you’re faced with horrific scenes – a moonscape as far as the eye can see, like a bone-chilling scene at Mordor (the defiled, dead land JRR Tolkien describes in Lord of the Rings). The amount of destruction and lack of rehabilitation is heartbreaking.
The Tormin mining operation. One of the most extensive mines along the coastline. Image: Jacque Smit.
“It was tough to digest the constantly changing terrain below us. At one point, we’d fly over the gargantuan Tormin mine that looks like a set out of the movie Blood Diamond, with huge chunks of earth gouged out and gigantic trucks driving around. Then we’d be over maybe the longest stretch of unspoilt coast, 100 km of beautiful and pristine shoreline up to Hondeklipbaai.”
Run by Australian-owned mining company MSR (Mineral Sands Resources) the Tormin mine is just one of many that have concessions to plough through beaches to mine sands rich in high-grade deposits of naturally occurring zircon, ilmenite, rutile, magnetite and garnet – minerals used in everyday products such as ceramics, digital printing, dentistry and electrical components.
The Tormin beach mining in full swing. Image: Jacque Smit.
On the last leg of Day 1 the team took off and headed north to Alexander Bay, the Orange River and the Namibian border, passing over scores of kilometres of land mined by companies such as De Beers, most of which lies fallow and totally unrehabilitated. What they saw was a scary correlation with the actual description of Mordor by Tolkien: “Mists curled and smoked from dark and noisome pools. The reek of them hung stifling in the still air. Far away, now almost due south, the mountain walls of Mordor loomed, like a black bar of rugged clouds floating above a dangerous fog-bound sea.”
What they saw was a scary correlation with the actual description of Mordor by Tolkien: “Mists curled and smoked from dark and noisome pools. The reek of them hung stifling in the still air. Far away, now almost due south, the mountain walls of Mordor loomed, like a black bar of rugged clouds floating above a dangerous fog-bound sea.”
“The wind did not let up and we bumped and thumped our way along the coast, with the mining and degradation of the seashore becoming worse as we headed north,” said Tresfon. “Most of this coast is off-limits and inaccessible to terrestrial travellers. The original plan was to fly a little way up the Orange River before returning to Kleinzee, but the wind had eroded our fuel reserves to the point where I did not feel comfortable and elected to head straight back.”
Coffer dams are a highly destructive way to mine for diamonds, yet they litter the coastline between Hondeklip Bay and Alexander Bay. Image: Jacque Smit
Day 2 again dawned with no fog, but the sky was dark grey and ominous with heavy rain falling out to sea. After refuelling and pre-flight checks were complete, Tresfon and Smit took off to the south. “Initially we were hammered by the incessant berg winds before outrunning the frontal system and bursting out from under the clouds and into the sunshine about an hour later,” said Smit. “We followed the coast back to Lamberts Bay, this time with the light behind us and collecting more footage along the way.”
The team flew back to Morningstar in beautiful calm conditions, following the coast to the Berg River mouth before heading inland to Vredenburg, Langebaan and back to the coast at Yzerfontein: “We landed back at Morningstar having flown 1,418km in just under 12 hours of flight time, with all our objectives achieved,” Tresfon said.
Apart from making the imagery and video available for media usage, PTWC plans to make a short film of the journey and to use the footage to assist their legal team in potential court cases against illegal mining or poorly considered mining applications. The repository will also be useful to scientists studying the effects of mining, such as the erosion of cliffs along the coast caused by heavy machinery and digging.
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