The entire broadcast of award-winning environmental show 50/50 this Monday (7.30 pm SABC 2) is focussed on the Wild Coast dune mining saga.

The centrepiece is a film by Don Guy ‘Pondo People’  which captures a day in the life of Ma-Aniya Mtwa and her family, friends and neighbours.  The “studio” from which the broadcast is recorded is thXolobeni area, with various spectacular scenic locations for presenters Johann Botha and Stacy Koma. 

A preview of Pondo People was shown to the Pondo people themselves at the regular Imbizo last Thursday at the Umgungundlovu Komkulu (Great Place).   Some three hundred local residents crammed into the small tribal courthouse, to welcome the 50/50 crew and express their absolute delight and joy at seeing themselves on film.   

In addition a delegation from the International Women in Mining Network – a global civil society movement that seeks to forge links between women from around the world who are negatively affected by mining operations – was there to witness firsthand how the AmaDiba Wild Coast communities have refused to be intimidated into accepting a mining venture that would totally destroy their traditional way of life and scar the earth.  (The four visitors from India, Papua New Guinea and Canada, are also interviewed in Monday’s program).

Lylie Musgrave

Posted on December 1st, 2008
Filed under: Current Issues