FOR many people a sand dune is just a sand dune – a great pile of fairly sterile sand particles which can be dug up with bulldozers, reshaped and then restored without too much fuss.
And if all the grains of sand along the scenic beaches of the Wild Coast are pretty similar to each other, does it really matter if an Australian mining company takes away some of the dark-coloured sandy minerals?
What harm would that cause, provided the dunes were raked up neatly afterwards and revegetated with the same trees and plants that used to live there before the miners arrived?
Yet according to Durban soil fertility expert Jan Meyer, putting Humpty Dumpty together again on the Wild Coast is not as easy as that – and he has cautioned against approving a mining venture close to the Wild Coast Sun casino without more intensive research.
Meyer has also raised a fundamental new issue which seems to have been overlooked in previous mine rehabilitation debates, including the Lake St Lucia dune-mining saga.
In a report submitted recently to national Minerals Minister Susan Shabangu, he said the sandy red soils at Xolobeni on the Wild Coast could never be the same again if heavy minerals were removed by the Australian-based mining company, Mineral Resource Commodities (MRC).
The danger which seems to have been completely overlooked is that the deliberate removal of titanium, iron and other heavy minerals could transform the sand into an even more sterile form – making it very difficult for local residents to grow healthy crops or to re-establish the unique natural vegetation for eco-tourism once the miners have extracted all their mineral profits.
“Most environmental impact studies dealing with the potential impact of mining operations on the environment have taken for granted that titanium and iron have no benefits for plant growth. But few, if any, have considered the negative impact on plant growth when these elements are removed from the sand.”
It is a little bit like removing haemoglobin from human blood streams and expecting the degraded blood to perform the same function as it used to.
Meyer said there has been growing scientific interest in the role of titanium in plant fertility, pollination and higher yields for crops and fruit trees.
Recent research in Poland suggested plants sprayed with extra doses of titanium produced bigger yields.
Pea plants produced up to 60% more peas when they were sprayed with a special titanium fertiliser spray, while apples, corn and sugar beet also produced up to 30% bigger yields.
Meyer, who spent 39 years as a soil scientist and crop nutrition expert at the SA Sugar Association in Mount Edgecombe, said titanium may also play a crucial role in “fixing” or binding nitrogen from the air into the soil, via the bacteria on plant roots.
“Given the potentially important role of titanium in the biological fixation of nitrogen, it can be inferred that removing titanium through mining may compromise the rehabilitation process by affecting the performance of pioneering plant species as well as their succession through nitrogen fixing.”
To illustrate this theory, Meyer noted that Acacia Karoo (a pioneer tree species) was still the dominant tree type in mined areas which had been “rehabilitated” 30 years ago by the Richards Bay Minerals company in KwaZulu-Natal.
“This could well account for the lack of succession of other plants following Acacia Karoo in the Richards Bay Minerals rehabilitation programme, since titanium is no longer present.”
Meyer said it was a misconception that soil was “lifeless”.
“There are more micro-organisms (bacteria, fungi, protozoa) in one teaspoon of soil than the total human population of earth.
“Soil is an essential part of life on the planet and to think that one can restore soil through rehabilitation to its virgin state is nonsense,” he said.
It is not just the removal of titanium and other heavy minerals from the Xolobeni area which worries him.
The mining of beach sands involves stripping large areas of land in fragile ecosystems. Even though the richer top soils are stored away for later use in the rehabilitation process, Meyer said the very act of ripping up the soil would degrade organic matter in the soil because air immediately starts to oxidise parts of the soil.
Digging and mixing up the soil would also destroy the natural layers accumulated over many centuries and it was impossible to recreate these layers of clay or organic matter which were important to soil drainage and developing plant roots.
Crucial nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous and calcium were also removed during the mineral washing and separation process and there was a danger that the sandy soils would become compacted when it was plonked back roughly where it came from, further disrupting the growth of plant roots.
If Meyer is correct about the ecological dangers of removing titanium from mineral sands, what would this actually mean for the people in the Xolobeni/Amadiba area?
He concluded that it would be “impossible” to recreate the ecology of the area for eco-tourism or to achieve the same subsistence crop yields after mining ceases in 20 to 25 years from now.
Sarah Sephton, a Legal Resources Centre attorney who has lodged an appeal against the Australian mining venture, has argued that the Amadiba community would face “permanent and significant changes” to their traditional lifestyles if the mineral resources department allowed the mining project to go ahead.
In a lengthy appeal she cited several problems with the environmental impact assessment (EIA) and mining approval process
She argued that the EIA was a “sham” because local residents were not consulted properly and senior mining department officials failed to consider the unacceptable pollution and environmental damage resulting from the project.
“Something more is required of a mining proponent than merely presenting a proposed project or study results and allowing interested and affected parties to vent their concerns and frustrations before doing exactly what it intended to do all along.”
She said there had been significant tension around the issue of mining at Xolobeni with serious allegations of corruption, intimidation and violence which had been referred to the SA Human Rights Commission.
Traditional leaders had been marginalised and side-stepped and even people facing eviction from their land to make way for mining had not been consulted.
Several residents who purportedly signed pro-mining certificates told a recent community meeting they never signed these documents, which also contained the names of dead people or people who did not live in the Xolobeni area.
Sephton also raised objections around the Xolobeni black empowerment company Xolco which purported to represent the interests of the community.
Yet it was clear from the company’s trust deeds that it was a private business venture rather than a public service organisation.
Its members had not been elected democratically and one of its founder members, Zamile Madiba Qunya, was entitled to take decisions on his own and was under no obligation to pay any money to the local community.
The mining approval is currently on hold pending an internal appeals process and Sephton has not ruled out a High Court appeal.
Posted on November 23rd, 2009 by Louis
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