Historians invoke graves and ancestors against Mapungubwe coal
Archaeologists and 'green' groups are appealing to government against its 'error' in approving Vele coal mine near Mapungubwe.
The entire Limpopo Shashe confluence area contains the first evidence of state level organisation in southern Africa, with "cultural, educational, intellectual, community, regional and national assets inherited from our ancestors".
Archaeology lecturers Dr Natalie Swanepoel of Unisa and Dr Alex Schoeman of UP write in the SA Archaeological Bulletin in June that the Mapungubwe landscape "operates as a national symbol in the South African imagination."
They argue that the state is "trading a precious asset in return for small proceeds from short term mining of an anti environmental, unsustainable, hopefully soon to be defunct energy source."
Archaeologists and environmental organisations appeal awarding of New Order Mining Rights and approval of an Environmental Management Programme (EMP) for Vele Colliery, 7km from the eastern border of Mapungubwe National Park and Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site.
Consultants Jacana v Walmsley
Environmental consultant Walmsley, via a Southern African Institute for Environmental Assessment publication, criticise consultant Jacana Environmentals for its 2009 EMP for Vele Coal, allowing underground as well as open cast methods, and large infrastructure upgrades and installations.
The environmental impact scoping report was completed by a large team under Jacana Environmentals, including Naledi Development Restructured, WSM Leshika Consulting, Red Earth, Dubel Integrated Environmental Services, Bohlweki SSI Environmental, and R&R Cultural Resource Consulting. Mulilo Power appointed environmental consultants Arcus Gibb.
Some elements in the Vele Colliery EMP were questioned this year by specialists like Wilmer. The EIA had called for a full HIA, but this was not done, yet the EMP was approved. Environmental planning should include heritage as "integral component", they urge, citing a 2005 study by Winter and Baumann.
"There should be an integrated Environmental and Heritage Impact Assessment, EIA and HIA, that looks at the area north of the Soutpansberg in entirety, before any large scale industrial activity is approved," write Drs Swanepoel and Schoeman.
The activists rap some consultants for forsaking their calling. "Occasionally this may entail telling employers something that they do not want to hear. If baseline work is done well and thoroughly, we would meet with fewer problems at the level at which government gives approval," write Drs Swanepoel and Schoeman.
Opponents say the professional third parties were led to follow a piecemeal approach to mask the scope of cumulative impacts. Musina municipality sees developmental benefits.
Some Musina area residents are concerned that the mine would attract migrant labour, crime, prostitution and overcrowding. Others just want jobs. "We are thankful for the mine, this means jobs, bursaries and a better life for us all," said Lovemore Tshivhula, member of Tshivhula tribe, cited in a Vele document.
Thirty year plan
The mine will operate for some 30 years, around the clock. Limpopo Coal, owner of the colliery, claims that the impact of the coal mine on the area will be temporary.
Historians argue that impacts on archaeological sites would be permanent and not reversible, including roads, rail, traffic, dust, noise.
Royal pawns
Archaeologist Dr Amanda Esterhuysen wrote in the same professional bulletin last year that the values of history and archaeology itself were under threat.
She responded to a query from Miner's Choice that heritage science was devalued "when government departments fail to carry out legislated assessment and compliance procedures. However, if quality EIAs were carried out, and open and sound decisions made by government departments, then heritage would be valued and protected. When poor EIAs are passed with no record of consideration and decision, the perception is that heritage is being undervalued to further some political or economic agenda."
Many archaeologists have noted distress of current distant descendants of elite hilltop burials, at the prospect of Limpopo valley water and air pollution. The appellants write "how deeply the archaeological Mapungubwe past resonates with contemporary communities." The burials were studied by UP for many years, became 'bones' of contention, and were re-interred by a DEAT (DWE) process in 2007, in the land claims era, without DNA testing, supposedly since permission was not obtained from claimnants.
Land claimnants and their advisors worldwide avoid DNA testing and rely on oral tradition instead, as a visiting Canadian archaeologist told the SA Archaeological Society in 2008. Yet DNA results could be as interpretive as written or oral record. DNA from a small sample of skeletons from one era, the Bushman, Khoe, Zhizo, Mapungubwe, or trekboer culture, for example, had no less right than more recent inhabitants.
Oral tradition, as ethnography researchers had found in other research, as at Makapans Valley, is fluid, and no less constructed than 'recorded' incidents in colonial history. A Machete tribe, under a Machiba royal clan, are paraded in regalia in Vele documents as supporting mining. Cultural land owners are a bargaining chip, handy to dispense mining rights, vouch for social benefits, guide some social investment into mutually advantageous projects, and keep other claims at bay. Archaeologists believe that environmental compliance agencies have failed in their intended roles as independent arbiters, cheapening the process of economic empowerment. The new elite tribal owners of Mapungubwe, as in several other areas, are enriched pawns between state departments, international developers, Chinese clients, and conservators, facilitated by trustees and lawyers.
Geology v landscape
Five or more coal prospecting licences have been granted west of Mapungubwe, waiting in the wings for Vele Coal to break ground on the east of the world heritage site, perhaps to slowly encroach it, incidentally driving a wedge into a conservation vision to link the Limpopo valley to the Kruger Park.
Archaeologists say Mapungubwe is a 'cultural landscape', not just a rainmaking hill turned to royal citadel, then to royal cemetery. A network of sites span from BC 500 000 years to the 1800s, bearing marks of interaction of hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, agropastoralists, traders, and trekboer settlers in the confluence area.
The eastern boundary of 'Mapungubwe' is arbitrary, and bisects an area rich in initiation figurines, although extremely sparse in rock art, engravings, shelters, or ruins.
Prospecting and power plans
"Short term coal mining will destroy the integrity of the landscape forever," write the protesting archaeologists. "Decisions about Vele Colliery and associated development, like underground and surface fuel storage tanks, prospecting permits to other mining companies, and the planned Mulilo power station… contradicts the value of heritage resources as arising from the landscape."
Mulilo power station is not an integral part of the coal mining plan, and is on hold, but protesters are not relieved.
Crossborder park plan
Botswana and Zimbabwe are investigating, as part of the Trans-Frontier Conservation Area process, the possibility of extending World Heritage Site status to include areas of Mapungubwe cultural landscape that lie in their countries.
Since the area bears a shared heritage, government "should not make unilateral decisions about the destruction of sites." Low level of public consultation is one of the bones of contention
Graves as trump cards
Appellants see an admission by the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonijca, that 124 mines operated without valid water licenses, as proof of government, state and industry collusion to mine at cost to the environment and heritage. Historians, like land claimnants elsewhere, now invoke potential grave desecration in a bid to sway policy makers.
* Heritage Impacts Assessment, HIA, procedures were detailed in Miner's Choice 2010 June edition by archaeologist Karen Van Ryneveld.
Historians invoke graves and ancestors against Mapungubwe coal
Archaeologists and 'green' groups are appealing to government against its 'error' in approving Vele coal mine near Mapungubwe.
Archaeology lecturers Dr Natalie Swanepoel of Unisa and Dr Alex Schoeman of UP write in the SA Archaeological Bulletin in June that the Mapungubwe landscape "operates as a national symbol in the South African imagination."
They argue that the state is "trading a precious asset in return for small proceeds from short term mining of an anti environmental, unsustainable, hopefully soon to be defunct energy source."
Archaeologists and environmental organisations appeal awarding of New Order Mining Rights and approval of an Environmental Management Programme (EMP) for Vele Colliery, 7km from the eastern border of Mapungubwe National Park and Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site.
Consultants Jacana v Walmsley
Environmental consultant Walmsley, via a Southern African Institute for Environmental Assessment publication, criticise consultant Jacana Environmentals for its 2009 EMP for Vele Coal, allowing underground as well as open cast methods, and large infrastructure upgrades and installations.
The environmental impact scoping report was completed by a large team under Jacana Environmentals, including Naledi Development Restructured, WSM Leshika Consulting, Red Earth, Dubel Integrated Environmental Services, Bohlweki SSI Environmental, and R&R Cultural Resource Consulting. Mulilo Power appointed environmental consultants Arcus Gibb.
Some elements in the Vele Colliery EMP were questioned this year by specialists like Wilmer. The EIA had called for a full HIA, but this was not done, yet the EMP was approved. Environmental planning should include heritage as "integral component", they urge, citing a 2005 study by Winter and Baumann.
"There should be an integrated Environmental and Heritage Impact Assessment, EIA and HIA, that looks at the area north of the Soutpansberg in entirety, before any large scale industrial activity is approved," write Drs Swanepoel and Schoeman.
The activists rap some
consultants for forsaking their calling. "Occasionally this may entail telling employers something that they do not want to hear. If baseline work is done well and thoroughly, we would meet with fewer problems at the level at which government gives approval," write Drs Swanepoel and Schoeman.
Opponents say the professional third parties were led to follow a piecemeal approach to mask the scope of cumulative impacts. Musina municipality sees developmental benefits.
Some Musina area residents are concerned that the mine would attract migrant labour, crime, prostitution and overcrowding. Others just want jobs. "We are thankful for the mine, this means jobs, bursaries and a better life for us all," said Lovemore Tshivhula, member of Tshivhula tribe, cited in a Vele document.
Thirty year plan
The mine will operate for some 30 years, around the clock. Limpopo Coal, owner of the colliery, claims that the impact of the coal mine on the area will be temporary.
Historians argue that impacts on archaeological sites would be permanent and not reversible, including roads, rail, traffic, dust, noise.
Royal pawns
Archaeologist Dr Amanda Esterhuysen wrote in the same professional bulletin last year that the values of history and archaeology itself were under threat.
She responded to a query from Miner's Choice that heritage science was devalued "when government departments fail to carry out legislated assessment and compliance procedures. However, if quality EIAs were carried out, and open and sound decisions made by government departments, then heritage would be valued and protected. When poor EIAs are passed with no record of consideration and decision, the perception is that heritage is being undervalued to further some political or economic agenda."
Many archaeologists have noted distress of current distant descendants of elite hilltop burials, at the prospect of Limpopo valley water and air pollution. The appellants write "how deeply the archaeological Mapungubwe past resonates with contemporary communities." The burials were studied by UP for many years, became 'bones' of contention, and were re-interred by a DEAT (DWE) process in 2007, in the land claims era, without DNA testing, supposedly since permission was not obtained from claimnants.
Land claimnants and their advisors worldwide avoid DNA testing and rely on oral tradition instead, as a visiting Canadian archaeologist told the SA Archaeological Society in 2008. Yet DNA results could be as interpretive as written or oral record. DNA from a small sample of skeletons from one era, the Bushman, Khoe, Zhizo, Mapungubwe, or trekboer culture, for example, had no less right than more recent inhabitants.
Oral tradition, as ethnography researchers had found in other research, as at Makapans Valley, is fluid, and no less constructed than 'recorded' incidents in colonial history. A Machete tribe, under a Machiba royal clan, are paraded in regalia in Vele documents as supporting mining. Cultural land owners are a bargaining chip, handy to dispense mining rights, vouch for social benefits, guide some social investment into mutually advantageous projects, and keep other claims at bay. Archaeologists believe that environmental compliance agencies have failed in their intended roles as independent arbiters, cheapening the process of economic empowerment. The new elite tribal owners of Mapungubwe, as in several other areas, are enriched pawns between state departments, international developers, Chinese clients, and conservators, facilitated by trustees and lawyers.
Geology v landscape
Five or more coal prospecting licences have been granted west of Mapungubwe, waiting in the wings for Vele Coal to break ground on the east of the world heritage site, perhaps to slowly encroach it, incidentally driving a wedge into a conservation vision to link the Limpopo valley to the Kruger Park.
Archaeologists say Mapungubwe is a 'cultural landscape', not just a rainmaking hill turned to royal citadel, then to royal cemetery. A network of sites span from BC 500 000 years to the 1800s, bearing marks of interaction of hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, agropastoralists, traders, and trekboer settlers in the confluence area.
The eastern boundary of 'Mapungubwe' is arbitrary, and bisects an area rich in initiation figurines, although extremely sparse in rock art, engravings, shelters, or ruins.
Prospecting and power plans
"Short term coal mining will destroy the integrity of the landscape forever," write the protesting archaeologists. "Decisions about Vele Colliery and associated development, like underground and surface fuel storage tanks, prospecting permits to other mining companies, and the planned Mulilo power station… contradicts the value of heritage resources as arising from the landscape."
Mulilo power station is not an integral part of the coal mining plan, and is on hold, but protesters are not relieved.
Crossborder park plan
Botswana and Zimbabwe are investigating, as part of the Trans-Frontier Conservation Area process, the possibility of extending World Heritage Site status to include areas of Mapungubwe cultural landscape that lie in their countries.
Since the area bears a shared heritage, government "should not make unilateral decisions about the destruction of sites." Low level of public consultation is one of the bones of contention
Graves as trump cards
Appellants see an admission by the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonijca, that 124 mines operated without valid water licenses, as proof of government, state and industry collusion to mine at cost to the environment and heritage. Historians, like land claimnants elsewhere, now invoke potential grave desecration in a bid to sway policy makers.
* Heritage Impacts Assessment, HIA, procedures were detailed in Miner's Choice 2010 June edition by archaeologist Karen Van Ryneveld.
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