More West Coast Prospecting Applications to Watch

A deluge of applications to prospect on the West Coast of South Africa, is alarming environmental and civil society groups who are against this stretch of coast becoming one giant mining operation, both onshore and offshore.

This week, a company known as Fish By The Sea, has applied to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, to bulk-prospect for diamonds on a pristine and fragile stretch of the West Coast near Vanrhynsdorp. Another, a Gauteng-based company, Nurulos (Pty) Ltd, has applied to prospect for heavy minerals over an area of 21500 hectares of three farms, Strandfontein, Tities Baai, and Klein Kogel Fontein, in the district of Kamiesberg which is 25km south of the town of Garies.