The spate of controversial prospecting applications in the Western Cape is continuing.
The latest comes from a Sandton-based company that has applied for prospecting rights for manganese and other minerals on 17 farms - seven of which are state-owned properties making up about 80 percent of the proclaimed Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area.
This wilderness area, near Porterville and Tulbagh, is one of the elements making up the Cape Floristic Region World Heritage Site.
Most of the privately owned farms affected are also protected in terms of water catchment legislation, and for their agricultural potential. One of them is the well-known Visgat, which protects the pristine headwaters of the Olifants River.
However, the regional office of the Department of Mineral Resources has accepted a prospecting rights application by the Sandton company, Dream Weaver Trading 56. The company is listed in the Cipro companies register with a SIC (standard industrial classification) code of "retail trade, except of motor cycles; repair of personal household goods".
A Gauteng-based consultant for the company, Thami Mazibuko, apparently attempted during May to contact the landowners of all 17 farms in order to comply with the statutory 30-day notice and opportunity for objection, as specified in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.
He was, however, reportedly not able to find them all and asked the local police to help. They referred him to a local farmers' group.
They in turn alerted Agri Wes-Cape, the regional arm of the national organised agriculture federation, which has now lodged a formal objection.
On May 28, environmental consultant Charl de Villiers sent an urgent e-mail message on behalf of Agri Wes-Cape to Mazibuko, asking for information about the application so the agricultural body could "make an informed submission on this application".
Mazibuko referred De Villiers to the Department of Mineral Resources' acceptance notice, which included a list of the 17 properties to which the application applied, but no information about the affected environment or land ownership.
On June 4, De Villiers sent a second e-mail, pointing out that the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area was a statutorily protected area in terms of the National Forests Act, and the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board Act, as well as being an inscribed World Heritage Site and part of the Greater Cederberg Biodiversity Corridor.
"Virtually all the privately owned properties that constitute the eastern cluster of farms to which this application applies are proclaimed Mountain Catchment Areas.
"The latter land is also demarcated as agricultural land in terms of the Sub-Division of Agricultural Land Act," he said, and again asked for information urgently.
Mazibuko again did not reply to De Villiers, but phoned the office of Agri Wes-Cape chief executive Carl Opperman to say that the e-mails had been received and that the application was being withdrawn.
A request for this in writing has, however, not yet materialised
In his four-page letter of objection, Opperman said, inter alia: "All in all, it would be highly inappropriate to contemplate any prospecting in a protected area and World Heritage Site that, were it to meet its desired objectives, could be amplified into a massively damaging mining operation that would result in the irreversible loss of globally threatened biodiversity, and potentially permanent degradation of regionally important water resources.
"Such development cannot be viewed as ecologically, socially or economically justifiable."
