[miningmx.com] — A Gauteng company, Dream Weaver Trading 56 (Ltd), has applied for exploration rights in a declared wilderness area, as well as in a couple of neighbouring Boland farms.
Its application for prospecting rights in, for instance, the Groot Winterhoek wilderness area has been provisionally accepted by the Department of Mineral Resources, it would appear.
The company wants development rights to look for manganese ore.
There are however indications that the application for the portion Groot Winterhoek 44 may be withdrawn.
Sivuyile Mpakane, regional manager of the Department of Mineral Resources says no parts of the application have yet been formally amended. The application has not yet been assessed, and is at an “administrative stage’.
Meanwhile there is increasing concern in conservation circles about such applications in ecologically sensitive areas of the country, and legal opinion is being obtained.
Dr Kas Hamman, executive director for biodiversity at CapeNature, says this statutory conservation board will not support any exploration for mining rights applications in reserves.
As for prospecting or mining activities in legally declared protected areas, he reckons none of these may take place in terms of the Protected Areas Act.
A nature reserve such as Groot Winterhoek is thus not threatened by prospecting or potential mining activities, he believes.
The situation in the Knersvlakte – where plans in partnership with WWF-SA are well under way for declaring it a nature reserve – is however a “potential problem” for CapeNature because prospecting rights in this area have also been applied for.
The properties that have already been bought in the proposed reserve haven’t yet been declared protected.
Groot Winterhoek, north of Tulbagh and east of Porterville, is an important mountainous catchment area for the Cape metropole.
This application for development rights is the latest in a series affecting sensitive and/or established agricultural areas that have recently been submitted in terms of the minerals act in, for instance, the Western Cape.
These include the application for exploration rights in Moutonshoek close to Piketberg and a couple of wine farms near Stellenbosch, as well as in the Cape Peninsula.
An application to explore for natural gas resources in the Overberg and southern Cape has also been submitted.
