In their opinion piece on Atha Africa Ventures’ Yzermyn coal mining project, Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) executive director Melissa Fourie and Groundworks director Bobby Peek purport to fight for the community’s right to be heard, but deliberately fail to state that we, as the majority community of Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme Local Municipality, have never mandated the centre or any other affiliated entities to represent us. (Edna Molewa’s defence of her decision on Atha Africa Ventures is inaccurate, March 17) The most significant omission by the centre was to ignore our petition, with more than 9,000 signatures and 55 very strong letters of objection to the declaration of Mabola as a protected environment, addressed to the then MEC, Pinky Phosa. In turn, the MEC wrote to the community on December 24 2013 to advise that the purpose of the declaration of the protected environment was not to prohibit mining but to "better regulate environmentally deleterious activities in this ...
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