“Bad luck will come to us”: A short film on the impacts of unrehabilitated clay mining on a Limpopo community
9 February 2012 at 10:21 am
Watch the second in our series of four short films on some of the cases undertaken by the Centre for Environmental Rights and Lawyers for Human Rights through their joint mining project. “Bad luck will come to us” features Mashile Phalane of the Batlhabine Foundation at Lenyenye near Tzaneen in Limpopo.
In 2005, Blue Platinum Ventures reopened an old clay mine in Lenyenye, near Tzaneen in Limpopo. The clay is used for making bricks in their brickyard.
In 2010, they started mining outside the area for which they had an approved management programme, encroaching on areas sacred to the community.
Little, if any, rehabilitation has ever been done by Blue Platinum Ventures to contain the erosion which is threatening the health and safety of the Batlhabine community.
It took the Batlhabine community 3 months to get copies of a notice issued to Blue Platinum Ventures by the Department of Mineral Resources. Despite the rapid and uncontrolled erosion of those pits which are beginning to encroach on private land, the DMR notice does not direct the company to rehabilitate the mining pits closest to the community.
The film features Mashile Phalane from the Batlhabine Foundation.
This film was commissioned by the CER and Lawyers for Human Rights, produced by Green Renaissance and funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund.
To watch all four films in this series, click here.