Court drama as state tries to force through coal mining plan
18 October 2018
In a last-minute move, the government is attempting a new strategy to push through a coal mine in a formally protected Mpumalanga wetland area.
This week GroundUp reported that the North Gauteng High Court was to have heard an application to review the government's hush-hush 2016 approval of a coal mine in the Mabola Protected Environment, a strategic water catchment and crucial biodiversity area of the Mpumalanga grasslands.
But in a surprise move on Friday afternoon that caught even the government's legal team by surprise, Mpumalanga MEC for environmental affairs Vusi Shongwe published a notice of intention in the provincial gazette to exclude properties that make up this proposed coal mine from the Mabola Protected Environment.
In other words he intends to change the boundaries of the protected area.