Press Release: A Step Closer for Community Seeking Justice Against Tendele Coal Mining

Immediate Release: 2 June 2025

On 2 June 2025, the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO) together with the Global Environmental Trust (GET), Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), ActionAid South Africa, (ActionAidSA), and the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDN) obtained a court order from the Pietermaritzburg High Court setting out the agreed deadlines by which Tendele Coal Mining (Pty) Ltd and the other opposing respondents must file their answering papers.

This has been an uphill battle since 18 March 2025, when Part B papers were served on the respondents. As per the Rules of Court, answering affidavits were due on 29 April, but Tendele requested an additional two months to submit.

The Mpukunyoni Business Association (MBA), a company registered in May 2025 and which advised of its intention to intervene in the matter in April 2025, was represented in court to submit intervention papers.

The parties agreed to the inclusion of the MBA and timeframes by which to file further papers. The timeframes were made an Order of Court, which will, hopefully, prevent more delays. Leave to approach the Judge President for an expedited hearing was also granted.

In the meantime, Tendele continues its mining operations to the severe detriment of the residents of Emalahleni village. Satellite imagery (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a5Y7pw3tUwOg8jRBOqkwgtcw21nTTI8o/view?usp=drive_link ) dated 25 March 2025 shows the massive environmental destruction in the area, with activities having now commenced in the village of Ophondweni. Tendele continues with weekly blasting, even though families are living within 500 meters of the blasting zone. The failure to resettle these families places them at continued risk and violates both legal and ethical obligations.

MCEJO and the other non-profit organisations are pursuing Part B of their court application to interdict Tendele from continuing mining in three new villages in northern KwaZulu-Natal until it has complied with a judgment handed down in May 2022. See previous press release here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16qMxynFN23lu27Puq9AIn9ygLLyB46OH/view?usp=drive_link

“The delays orchestrated by Tendele and other respondents while our clients suffer daily are an abuse of the legal system. As frustrating as it is to have to approach court for orders such as this one, we hope that this will ensure these dates will be complied with and we will be given an expedited hearing. We are one step closer to justice, which has been a long time coming.”

Photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14vqsWFjfyiRdLuA-nlj_0ux3iTgstUEj?usp=drive_link

Contact: Kirsten Youens – All Rise Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice

061 226686 / kyouens@allrise.org.za

Press Release 25-11-24: JINDAL FAILS AGAIN – R38 BILLION IRON ORE MINE IN KWAZULU-NATAL IS NO CLOSER TO STARTING

The wheels have come off at scoping. Jindal will be starting its EIA for a fourth time.

The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy has directed Jindal and its environmental consultant TCIR to redo the first step of the EIA process again. This will be Jindal’s fourth attempt at securing environmental approval for its massive 26 000 ha, R38 billion iron ore project located 300 km east of Melmoth and extending all the way south to the Nkwaleni Valley near Eshowe in KwaZulu Natal.

In 2016, Jindal withdrew its application for environmental authorisation, citing low steel prices. The community, which has fiercely objected to the project since its announcement in 2011, claimed this as their victory. Either way, Jindal was not going away and, in early 2022, appointed the large consultancy firm SLR to submit a new application. The EIA report was finally submitted to the Department in October 2023 in which SLR recommended that the project be approved despite recording 15 pages of significant gaps in the specialist reports.

On 29 January 2024, the Department in deciding Jindal’s application refused authorisation, citing too many gaps in the specialist reports and flaws in the consultation process, a decision strongly supported by interested and affected parties (I&APs) who had raised these concerns in the EIA process.

In recording the reasons for its decision, the Department stated that “[t]here is limited information in which to make a positive decision. By applying holistic and defensible decision making, taking cognisance of the precautionary principle and in line with the Department’s mandate, the Department’s decision to refuse is in line with the obligation in terms of Section 24 of the Constitution. The Department is mandated to protect the environment for present and future generations.”

No environmental authorisation means no mining right and no mining.

In response, Jindal withdrew its initial mining application and resubmitted a new one for an even bigger area, to include an additional 5 617 ha for a tailings dam right in the middle of highly productive commercial agricultural land in the Nkwaleni Valley. Jindal also appointed a new environmental consultant, TCIR, to start the EIA process afresh. Without notifying all I&APs, including those who had registered and actively participated in the previous EIA, TCIR embarked on a very hurried Scoping process and put out a substandard draft Scoping Report, the final version of which was submitted in August to the Department for acceptance without waiting for public comment.

All Rise Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice, a law centre based in KwaZulu-Natal, has been representing the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (“SDCEA”), the Nkwaleni Water User Association (“NWUA”) and the Nkwalini and Surrounds Supporting Sustainable Rural Development community organisation since 2023.

Having failed to engage with TCIR, All Rise submitted a complaint to the Department asking for the application to be refused based on the defective Scoping process. The lawyers also requested that their clients be afforded a hearing with the Department so they could put their grievances directly to the officials overseeing the application process. These grievances include the longstanding conflict in the region, which claimed two lives in 2024 and forced several community activists into hiding.

In response to All Rise’s complaint, the Department has directed Jindal and TCIR to redo Scoping, setting 3 March 2025 as the deadline for the submission of the final Scoping Report. However, this time, the process must include all I&APs previously registered and make the report available in isiZulu.

In the same letter, the Department refused the community a hearing, stating that it was premature now that the Scoping process would be done over and that it lacks the competence and mandate to address the aspects of violence and criminality.

“Not so,” says Janice Tooley, an attorney at All Rise. “We won’t be brushed off so easily when lives are at stake, and the law requires otherwise. We have written again to the Department, requiring that they issue a directive to Jindal and TCIR to apply the Section 24J Public Participation guidelines published under the National Environmental Management Act. These guidelines require that where there is a high degree of conflict, additional consultation is needed to ensure that consensus is reached among I&APs and that issues of conflict are addressed effectively. Thus, addressing conflict is very much within the ambit of the regulated EIA process and the Department’s competency and mandate”.

If Jindal pursues its mining project, its consultants will be conducting a Scoping process for a fourth time, and I&APs are not happy. Says Tooley, “while we are satisfied that the Department is taking our client’s procedural rights seriously for now, we question whether Jindal has any intention of following due process. We also question the ethics and competency of the environmental assessment practitioner. Besides repeatedly wasting our clients’ time and resources with these substandard EIAs, the project and its licensing applications are putting their lives in danger, and our various government agencies are doing very little or nothing to stop it”.

Asked what was next, she replied, “We are not giving up, and neither are our clients. We will continue to insist on procedural fairness in these processes. We have faith in our Constitution and the environmental justice it commands, and we will persist for as long as Jindal refuses to acknowledge and respect our clients’ rights, including their right to say no”.

Des D’Sa from SDCEA: “The entire process should be scrapped. No new application should be entertained by the government. We call on Jindal management to withdraw any application in South Africa and the world. We request them to use their monies in alternative industries – funding Just Energy Transition industries.”

Kirsten Youens from All Rise: “The Umhlatuze area has been utilised for agricultural activities for generations. Preserving the current land use for agriculture and horticulture production is vital. The Project will sterilise large areas of commercial agriculture and land with high agricultural potential. This will result in a net decrease in food supply and impact the viability of the value chain. Water and food security are fundamental needs that need to be protected, particularly during a global climate crisis.”

END

Copy of DMRE’s Refusal to the 2022 application for environmental authorisation:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kam0CoKbz8v_Mt73c98TheO4vFn6A6uk/view?usp=drive_link

Copy of All Rise’s complaints to DMRE:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y1G-CHEERj7DUu2gUdyguYu-jHC5ckPM/view?usp=drive_link

Copy of DMRE’s response to the complaint:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1efZjmk7uTfZoXeRid7cT4SOsEvHhXPSz/view?usp=drive_link

Link to the Jindal Media Release Public folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1V9Xwaz44AhKqe4aZYWAbZ9ci1vDI0luh?usp=drive_link

Press release: CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS BRING LEGAL CHALLENGE AGAINST MUSINA-MAKHADO SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE

Our organisations have approached the High Court in Polokwane to review the environmental authorisation granted in respect of the heavy industrial development site of the Special Economic Zone located in northern Limpopo. We argue that the process was fatally flawed, with the provincial government granting itself environmental authorisation while ignoring severe impacts of this coalfuelled mega-project on water security and the climate crisis.

The Herd Nature Reserve, Living Limpopo and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies(CALS), represented by All Rise Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice, have launched a review application in the High Court in Polokwane. Our organisations are asking the Court to review and set aside anenvironmental authorisation which relates to the major development site of the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone, also known as the MMSEZ.

The Special Economic Zone was designated in 2017, with the Limpopo provincial government identifying two sites to the north and south of Musina for development and industrialisation. The operating entity, the MMSEZ SOC (state-owned company), is wholly owned by the Limpopo Economic Development Agency (LEDA) – an agency of the same provincial government department responsible for granting environmental authorisation. The MMSEZ is projected to generate over one billion tons of CO2e over its lifetime, or more than 10% of South Africa’s annual carbon budget under its Paris Agreement commitments. The scale of the development has the potential to radically alter the
environmental, social and economic landscape of the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve region, and the risks demand considered decision-making around environmental authorisation.

Many organisations – including All Rise, Living Limpopo and CALS – have repeatedly raised concerns about the feasibility and impact of the MMSEZ on this sensitive region and its vulnerable rural communities. Efforts to engage meaningfully with the government agencies sponsoring the project through the public participation process have proved futile. The final Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report issued in February 2021 by Delta Built Environment Consultants did not recommend authorisation. In spite of this, the Limpopo provincial government proceeded to appoint another environmental assessment practitioner to issue a revised final EIA Report in September 2021, which paved the way for it to grant itself authorisation in February 2021.

CALS and All Rise, along with several other civil society organisations promoting environmental and social justice, brought internal appeals against the decision, all of which were dismissed in July last year. We have therefore approached the High Court to review and set aside the environmental authorisation and instead uphold our appeal. We argue that the EIA, appeal, and public participation processes needed to be more procedurally fair and properly consider the impacts on, amongst other things, climate change and water security.

The review application includes two expert reports. The first, by Dr Louis Snyman from CALS, examines the potential devastating consequences of such a high-impact development without proper consideration of spatial planning. These include the loss of biodiversity, worsening already aging infrastructure and water supply problems, droughts, flooding, pollution and wetland destruction. The second report from independent political ecologist, Dr Victor Munnik, focuses on the dangerous impact of the water supply plans to meet the vast water requirements of the MMSEZ in this already water-stressed region.

“The Vhembe region contains some of the most biodiverse and culturally sensitive areas in the country, including the northern Kruger National Park, Mapungubwe World Heritage Site and other areas like the Herd Reserve, which are largely unprotected,” says Dr Louis Snyman, head of Environmental Justice at CALS. “This is already a water-scarce area, and failing to properly consider spatial development could have devastating consequences.”
“Living Limpopo took to the street markets of Thohoyandou to speak to the people who trade in indigenous natural commodities wild-harvested in the area around the MMSEZ, as well as to smallholder farmers and people living in nearby villages,” says Lauren Liebenberg. “Few had even heard of the MMSEZ. Those who had were sceptical. All want their voices heard. The Vhembe is our birthright. It has been sold without permission.”

“The right to an environment that is not harmful to health or wellbeing is guaranteed in the Constitution,” says Kirsten Youens from All Rise. “This is not only about protecting the physical aspects of the environment but the social, cultural and spiritual attributes. The MMSEZ is a massive development that will extensively impact all aspects of the environment. It will result in a severe setback to efforts to fight the climate crisis and render South Africa in breach of our international obligations.”

We thank Legal Aid South Africa for their financial support in this matter, in funding the review application.