Resisting development or imposition? Examining the many dynamics around the resistance of externally initiated, state-assisted, and industry-driven “development” projects in the Wild Coast, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Abstract

The South African Wild Coast communities received the attention of a globally networked mining company, which is supported by the state to extract minerals from ancestral lands. Deploying the political ecology approach and the “sacrifice zones” notion, this paper reflects critically on the struggle of local communities to resist such externally initiated, state-supported, and industry-drivenprojects. It draws evidence from the attempt by a mining company to extract minerals in the area, the attempt by the state to construct the N2 toll road, and the attempts by Shell South Africa to explore oil and gas in the Wild Coast coastline. In all these cases, the state envisages that the projects will bring inclusive development, much to the chagrin of local communities who want to preserve their ancestral lands for economic, spiritual, and cultural reasons. The paper argues that the state’s position in the Wild Coast is aligned with the broader imposition of “development” projects in purportedly weaker communities, albeit with exaggerated spinoffs, while ignoring the local environment, priorities, cultures, traditions, religion, concerns, and views. Given the way the state and industry prioritise the “imposed development” over the local context, this paper uses the experiences of communities in the Wild Coast to interrogate the essence of development, and the nature of the state. This paternalistic conduct of the state to decide on behalf of local communities is inherently flawed, in that it creates an impression that there is a symbiotic relationship between externally initiated “development” projects and local interests.

Keywords:

• Wild Coast
• development
• state
• anti-mining struggles
• local communities

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

In post-apartheid South Africa, there exists a widely held belief that local communities who are fighting against developmental projects such as mining are resisting development. In this article, this paper engages this debate using the case of Xolobeni, where local communities have been fighting a mining company for over 10 years. While it is true that mining has brought economic development, this paper draws attention to the non-economic benefits that local communities enjoy such as cultural/living heritage, customary rights, religion, spirituality, culture, and other social aspects threatened by these development projects. Using the concept of the notion of “sacrifice zones” and the political ecology approach, the paper casts doubt on the ability of the developmental projects to lift people out of poverty, also given that elsewhere in South Africa, mining communities continue to face various problems in the hands of mining companies.

1. Introduction

In post-apartheid South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC)-led government has enacted progressive policies and legislation aimed at protecting the environment. However, the same government has also been at the forefront of supporting the extractive industry development in the former Homelands, which some see as contradictory to environmental preservation. Former Homelands or Bantustans are places that were designated by past racist white governments to push black communities to live in, after forced removals (land dispossession). In contrast, the view of the government is that these developments such as mining will activate economic development, to the benefit of poor communities in these coastal regions. In this sense, industrial development is seen to advance the state’s obligation to safeguard the socio-economic rights of citizens, as it not only contributes to job creation but also the public fiscus through corporate taxes. In addition, the extractive industry creates opportunities for local development through benefit-sharing initiatives and provides for foreign exchange earnings. In South Africa, mining accounts for over 8% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Mnwana & Bowman, 2021). The South African National Development Plan (NDP) of 2011, a crucial policy document, highlighted the commitment of the state to eliminate poverty, reverse the legacies of apartheid, reduce inequalities, and overcome various other socio-economic challenges (National Planning Commission, 2011).

Through the Mineral and Petroleum Development Resources Act 28 of 2002, which governs the extraction of minerals in South Africa, the state has the power to regulate the processes of natural resource extraction for the benefit of all citizens and to promote economic development (Republic of South Africa, 2002). However, the state is equally obligated to protect the social and environmental rights of citizens as per Section 24 of the South African Constitution (Republic of South Africa, 1996). Despite the benefits of mining and other developmental projects, especially in the former Homelands and regions where minerals abound, evidence shows that many local communities have faced vicious land dispossession, air pollution, social strife, disruption of land-based livelihoods, and other negative impacts induced by externally initiated, state-assistedd and industry-driven projects. Much benefits are often accrued by local elites, traditional leaders, shareholders, company executives, and members of the political class through local empowerment deals and other initiatives (Capps, 2021; Mnwana, 2021; Mnwana & Bowman, 2021; Mupambwa & Xaba, 2019; Overy, 2020; Skosana, 2022; Zamchiya, 2022).

In the recent past, the public discourse on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape and the extractive industry advances have been centred on the dramatised and militant resistance by the local communities under the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), which challenged the state and industry. The ACC was formed by villagers in 2007, to coordinate the fight against mining in the area. Since 1968, various scholars have conducted research on the struggles of the Wild Coast communities for their environmental and cultural preservation (Bennie, 2011; Kepe, 2014; Kepe, 2014; Mahlatsi, 2018; Zamchiya, 2019; Cheteni & Umejesi, 2023). However, there remains a paucity of scholarly work that has captured the nuances of the Wild Coast community's struggles.

The research problem that this paper engages is the obsessive presentation of developmental projects such as mining for quantitative benefits, which neglects the non-economic benefits that local communities draw from the land. The objective of this paper is not to discard the economic benefits of externally initiated, state-assisted, and industry-driven projects such as the ones proposed for the Eastern Cape’s Wild Coast. Instead, the paper aims to draw attention to non-economic local issues, which have been largely disregarded in the extractive industry development, such as cultural/living heritage, customary rights, religion, spirituality, culture, and other social aspects threatened by these development projects. The state’s position in the Wild Coast is aligned with the broader imposition of “development” projects in purportedly weaker communities, albeit with exaggerated spinoffs, while ignoring the local environment, priorities, cultures, traditions, religion, concerns, and views. Elsewhere in South Africa, Chinigo and Walker (2020) have observed that the development of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) was designed to meet scientific development based on national and global priorities, outside local interests, without any benefits for local communities.

This paper provides a novel approach to the anti-mining struggles and academic debates in that it has shown that an emphasis on non-economic benefits that communities draw from the land is important in that it venerates the multidimensional uses of land by communities, which must be respected. These developmental projects are often coached with developmentalism, and measured in quantitative and economic terms, with the claim that they are for the public good. Economic benefits such as job creation and infrastructure development are often associated with these projects, with little attention paid to vital non-economic factors in the lives of host communities. Contrary to the claims of economic benefits, evidence suggests that such benefits of mining to local communities in the Wild Coast, for instance, are not equitable to the losses associated with land dispossession and other impacts. Job opportunities, for example, are often insufficient due to the high employment demand resulting from the loss of land-based and natural resource-based livelihoods (Bennie, 2018).

Furthermore, in some cases, such as the ACC, local communities prefer supporting tourism, agriculture, and environmental protection over imposed development (Bennie, 2019). The spirited attempts by the South African government and industry to impose mining, seismic surveys (exploration of oil and gas), and the N2 toll road construction have ignored the social and environmental costs such as land dispossession, pollution, the disruption of the social fabric, low wages, loss of access to natural resources and other social ills associated with the extractive industry, while the elite and shareholders often accrue most of the economic gains (Mnwana, 2021; Mnwana & Bowman, 2021; Mupambwa & Xaba, 2019; Overy, 2020).

Given that the state and industry have largely disregarded customary rights, cultural, religious, spiritual, environmental, and social aspects of local communities in the Wild Coast, this brings into question how development is conceptualised, for whom it is for, and what the state is. In this sense, the paper argues that local communities in the Wild Coast are not rejecting development, rather, they are rejecting an imposition that is masked with developmentalism. Hence, resistance is about protecting their ancestral land, which is central to their being and identity. Development, at least for African communities, is broader than economic and quantitative measures. Land for many African communities has multifaceted purposes, more than just a source of livelihood (Tafira & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2017). Understanding this significance of land is crucial in exploring the different conceptions of the environment, and the power dynamics embedded in the struggles in the Wild Coast, which situates the state and industry on one side, and local activists, environmentalists, and other opponents of mining on the other.

As shown in the following section, the notion of “sacrifice zones” and the political ecology approach help to illuminate unequal power relations, the different conceptions of the environment, and to explore questions about the nature of the state and development. Using the “sacrifice zones” notion and the political economy approach helped to examine the extent to which African communal values and ways of living have been undermined, and how power dynamics tend to tilt in favour of imposed development proponents against local communities. In this regard, the courts of law and environmentalism (resistance) have become the centre of power for local anti-mining activists to deter the power of the state, and the globally networked, well-resourced mining firms. The political ecology approach seeks to unpack power dynamics in accessing the environment, and the real power players who are at the root of environmental problems (Bryant, 1992, 1998; Holifield & Day, 2017; Klein, 2015). The political ecology is a useful tool to understand the power of the state and industry, on the one hand, and the power that anti-mining activists have built in the Wild Coast and the consequences thereof, on the other. By using the notion of sacrifice zones, this paper demonstrates that what the state and industry are attempting to do in the Wild Coast falls short of development. Instead, it can be better understood as sacrificing the commons for the benefits which are largely not for the local communities nor controlled by them. This paper contributes to the discourse on environment, climate change impact and sustainability because the environmental crisis is a crisis of capitalism which seeks to commodify the environment, which often pollutes the land. Environmental sustainability remains important “because of how much energy, food and human-made resources we use every day” (Khan et al., 2022). The case of Xolobeni, is a great example of demonstrating that land-based livelihoods can be derived from the environment without polluting the environment and that the non-material benefits that communities draw from the land are central to the lives of black communities. This paper demonstrates the need for state interventions to augment local home-grown developmental initiatives.

2. “Development” by dispossession? Conceptualising political ecology and the notion of sacrifice zones

Across the world, there has long been a debate on how abundant mineral resources ought to be utilised for economic growth, without harming the ecosystems, hence the argument for sustainable development. The further complication is that, while many countries which have abundant natural resources tend to earn higher incomes, the abundance of these resources can have a harmful effect on the economic growth of a country (Xie et al., 2022). This paper uses the political ecology approach and the “sacrifice zones” notion to bring an understanding of the dynamics around accessing the environment, such as the power dynamics, and the relationships between the communities and the state, on the one hand, and the industry and the state on the other. Bryant (1992, p. 13) defines political ecology as the “attempt to understand the political sources, conditions and ramifications of environmental change”. Political ecology is about understanding the “political dynamics surrounding material and discursive struggles over the environment,” especially in former Third World countries (Bryant, 1998, p. 79). Thus, for political ecologists, the environment or ecology inevitably becomes politicised because of different interests at play, which often exposes the different power relations in the struggle over the environment. Hence, the struggle to access any environment exposes unique and different power relations, discourses, and knowledge claims among different stakeholders (Bryant, 1992, 1998).

The “sacrifice zones” notion which emerged from the literature on environmental justice seeks to capture the multifaceted costs to local poor communities who were permanently sacrificed to pave the way for developmental projects such as mining, construction of roads, military weaponry testing, and other projects, with lasting negative impacts, ostensibly for the public good. The “sacrifice zones” notion was initially applied to study the uninhabitable areas caused by nuclear testing, and to capture the lived experiences of local communities after nuclear testing. These communities are often left degraded, polluted, and scared by extractivism, often impossible to repair, and a way of life ruined for its inhabitants. Such lasting toxic impacts of these developmental projects often involve environmental and social wreckage by mostly extractive companies as they harvest natural resources (Holifield & Day, 2017; Klein, 2015). In South Africa, Chinigo and Walker (2020) have applied the notion of the “sacrifice zones” in the development of the SKA to demonstrate that while the project is described as a public good for all, many benefits are accrued by powerful constituencies with little benefits for local communities in the Karoo, who are politically and economically marginalised. In sum, the Karoo local communities are sacrificed by the state and SKA proponents to achieve national and global interests.

The political apology approach and “sacrifice zones” notion also helps to understand how the determination of the state to assist the industry in accessing the environment is also driven by an economic conceptualisation of the environment. Here, the irony is that while the state is attempting to push for developmentalism and economic growth to meet the socio-economic rights of citizens, such developmental projects have equally infantilised the voices, concerns, priorities, views, and cultures of local communities. Part of the bigger problem is that the state and industry often want to demonstrate the benefits of the developmental projects mainly in quantitative and economic terms while disregarding the broader and multifaceted lived experiences of black communities such as religion, the environment, tradition, spirituality, culture, the social fabric, and other local factors. For instance, Skosana (2022) understands grave removals in mining communities as dispossession and finds that grave removals, for example, leave communities with spiritual insecurity as they feel that they have lost their ties to ancestors, and this disrupts their social fabric.

Drawing from Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession, Zamchiya (2022, p. 418) notes that the post-apartheid mining industry has been characterised by material and incorporeal dispossession. Whereas material dispossession refers to the dispossession of land in the main, incorporeal dispossession implies the “intangible losses of spiritual capital, heritage and belonging through grave relocations” (Zamchiya, 2022, p. 418). The history of mining is replete with cases of forced removals and relocation of graves to pave the way for mining projects, giving less attention to religion, spirituality, culture, the social fabric, and tradition. In addition, a report by Corruption Watch (2018) in Limpopo and North West, the platinum-rich provinces shows that although millions of rands have been deposited into community trust accounts, traditional leaders have refused to disclose financial statements, while communities remain poor. With little food, widespread infighting, interference by politicians, poor communal skills, lack of clean water and poor infrastructure, Limpopo and North West mining communities have received little from mining, which raises questions about who benefits from mining proceeds. State institutions have failed to implement a legislative framework to help communities benefit from mining royalties. The irony is that while the state has failed to help mining communities benefit from royalties, the state is pushing for mining in the Wild Coast. All these issues are critical in understanding what development means, and who the state is for, in a democracy such as South Africa. Thus, this paper demonstrates the attempt by the state to desecrate and sacrifice the lives of black communities in the Wild Coast to achieve external interests, such as profits for shareholders, while disempowering local communities in the long run.

Hence, the major driver of resisting such proposed “development” is not only to protect ancestral lands, but is the realisation from previous experiences that extractive projects often leave the local people worse off. In fact, Overy (2020) goes to the extent of arguing that if the mining industry were to be forced to account for all the wrongs they have caused to the environment, and to the local communities, then mining would not be profitable. The state has sided with multinational mining companies to push for “development”. For instance, in 2008, Buyelwa Sonjica, the then Minister of the Department of Minerals and Energy in South Africa, once told a crowd of villagers in Xolobeni, a community in the Wild coast, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, that “this community is poor. You need development. We are going to mine here”. The villagers angrily responded, “you are insulting us. We are not poor. We have everything we need” (Cock, 2020). Another angry Xolobeni villager was quoted saying:

when shall this stupidity stop? How can we be poor when we have land? We grow maize, sweet potatoes, taro, potatoes, onions, spinach, carrots, lemons, guava and we sell some of it to the market. We eat fish, eggs, and chicken. This agriculture is what should be developed here. We have cattle for weddings and traditional rituals. We have goats for ceremonies. We are not a part of “one of four South Africans who go hungry to bed”. We have a life. Poor infrastructure is not poverty. (Washinyira, 2016b)

In another instance which exposes the entitlement of powerful “outsiders”, Mark Caruso, an executive of an Australian mine called Mineral Sands Resources threatened to deal with anyone resisting his mine in Xolobeni in October 2015. These insinuations and threats point to the interests of the industry and their perception of the environment, and how the industry would push their interests, even if it hurts local interests. Xolobeni experienced the first death of an anti-mining activist in April 2016, when the leader of ACC, Sikhosiphi “Bazooka”, Hadebe was murdered (Bennie, 2018; Green, 2020, pp. 106–110). The deaths of anti-mining activists in South Africa have become a norm in mineral-rich communities, which has heightened a climate of fear.

History is replete with cases where local mining communities are often sacrificed for broader developmental projects, which often benefit shareholders, the political elite, traditional leaders, and other non-local actors. Thus, the suspicion and resistance by the Wild Coast communities is understood from that point. The resolve of the state to impose mining, N2 toll road, and seismic surveys in the Wild Coast despite the communities’ disapproval fits within the broader track record of viewing the non-economic factors such as environmental factors, intangible cultural heritage, customary rights, spirituality, cultures, and tradition of local communities as a stumbling block to development deserving of less concern. Most importantly, Bennie (2011), Zamchiya (2019), and Bennie (2019) show that people in the Wild Coast are food self-sufficient, and depend on multiple self-sustaining land-based livelihood streams, such as cash income, crop production, ocean resource harvesting, animal ownership, and social grants to cushion the main source of incomes. Almost all households largely depend on agriculture, and they grow crops such as beans, pumpkin, cabbage, carrots, onions, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, yams (amadumbe), bananas, maize, as well as a variety of livestock, such as cattle, goats, and chicken. Communities also benefit from the nearby forest for firewood collection, as well as fishing, and building materials.

Again, Cheteni and Umejesi (2023) are at pains to show that people in the Wild Coast have benefited from agritourism (or farm tourism/rural tourism), and that agritourism has become a sustainable development strategy to alleviate poverty while preserving the environment, biodiversity, as well as the cultural traditions. The Wild Coast is also celebrated for its exceptional beauty, often dubbed the “world’s most spectacular coastlines” or “biodiversity hotspot”, one of the 235 such hotspots globally, as well as its rich pristine biodiversity (including forest, grassland, wetland, and aquatic ecosystems) (Tessaro and Kepe, 2014). Elsewhere, researchers have used global data to argue that the abundance of fossil fuels can have a harmful effect on the economic growth of a country and that an investment in renewable energy resources can increase the economy while protecting the ecosystem (Xie et al., 2022; Zakari et al., 2022). Thus, a study based on 20 Asian countries found that green innovation and sustainable economic development are positively linked to an increase in energy efficiency (Zakari et al., 2022).

Broadly speaking, part of the problem lies in the fact that the post-apartheid South African state anchored on neoliberalism often privileges the economic use of land and commercial production, which often neglects the cultural aspects and lived experiences of local communities (Hornby & Cousins, 2019). This approach of seeing communal lands in commodified and economic terms is mainly a consequence of neoliberal capitalism in post-apartheid South Africa, which leans on what is called the Washington Consensus. Here, it becomes clear that the state and industry see the Wild Coast as a state asset, in economic terms, to generate profit for the industry, revenue for the state, and some spinoffs for local communities, in the form of jobs, infrastructure development, and other benefits. In this context, less regard is given to the intangible cultural heritage, religious, and traditional aspects of communities. If the state and industry keep pushing for these projects, despite the disapproval of local communities, then a question must be asked, whose development is it for?

3. Contextualising the contested terrain of the Wild Coast

Historically, the Wild Coast communities are widely known for having waged the most significant struggle against colonial regimes, or what came to be known as the Pondoland revolts between 1958 and 1960. This demonstrated a rejection of Bantu (Tribal) authorities who were instrumental in advancing colonial interests within marginalised African communities, an inferior Bantu education system targeted at Africans, and all forms of forced removals. According to Mahlatsi (2018), this history of militancy, bravery, and resistance against colonial powers has come to shape how these communities have managed to fight to protect their ancestral land with assistance from environmental justice movements. Research shows that due to their successful resistance against the apartheid regime, known as the Pondo Revolts, these communities have managed to retain their land-based livelihood systems, which include farming, ocean harvesting, livestock keeping, agriculture, medical plants, and access to natural building materials (Bennie, 2018).

These communities have received attention for successfully resisting the attempts by the state and a well-resourced, globally networked Australian company to mine sand in the area (Peacock & Essa, 2021). Bennie (2018) notes that the number of jobs and economic development promised to the Wild Coast communities was dubious and highly inflated merely to acquire a mining right. This is because the claims were accompanied by meagre details on how such jobs would be created. Furthermore, because of the sophisticated nature of mining operations, many of those jobs would require highly technical skills that most residents do not possess and there would be less jobs for unskilled locals.

Further complicating the story of the Wild Coast is the state’s proposal to construct the N2 toll road, spearheaded by an unsolicited bid by a group of private construction companies, and will pass through multiple villages along the Wild Coast (Bennie, 2018). A 2011 study by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) commissioned by the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) showed that 98% of local communities in two Wild Coast regions, Port St Johns and Port Edward supported the proposed N2 toll road because of the benefits associated with a good road network (HSRC Human Sciences Research Council, 2011). However, local activists led by the ACC interpret the proposed N2 toll road, initially proposed in 1978, as a crafty way for the state to advance mining interests to transport minerals from the area. Besides interpreting the proposed road as a disguise to coercively bring mining into their community, the community also indicates the potential pollution, commodification, and appropriation of land by the elites and the potential disruption of their livelihoods as key concerns. The state, through its entity, SANRAL, claims that the proposed road will help to reduce traffic costs, save about R1, 5 billion in the freight industry per year, and create thousands of direct and indirect jobs (Steyn & Damba-Hendrik, 2021b).

Thus, the latest drive by Shell South Africa (Shell SA) to do seismic surveys (the exploration of gas and oil) in the entire Eastern Cape coastline (including the Wild Coast coastline) in December 2021 was met with a pre-existing culture of militant and emboldened environmentalism. Within the same month, the coastal communities managed to interdict Shell SA from doing seismic surveys. The court agreed to interdict the awarding of the exploration permit because it was based on poor consultation, and that the exploration was potentially harmful to the environment, livelihoods, heritage, and the customary rights of local communities. Thus, the awarding of the exploration permit was procedurally unfair and unlawful because Shell did not have an environmental authorisation (Sustaining the Wild Coast & Others and Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy & Others, 2021).

What further obstructed Shell SA’s exploration plan was the revelation that between October and December 2021, when opposition against Shell SA was growing, Batho Batho Trust donated R15 million to the ruling ANC, which was the largest donation to the ANC. Batho Batho Trust, an ANC investment company, has about 47% stake in Thebe Investment, which in turn has 28% stake in Shell SA (Gerber, 2022). Given that the state-supported seismic surveys, this reflects a conflict of interest on the part of the state. As of January 2022, Bloomberg and other news sites had reported that Shell SA had given up on its seismic survey in the West Coast (Burkhardt, 2022).

The author has been following the Xolobeni struggles since 2015 when he started doing a PhD on land and was fascinated by the spirited attempts by local communities to protect their ancestral lands. The author then started doing research on environmentalism and resistance against shale gas mining (fracking) in 2019 and has done research with environmentalists, including those interested in the story of the Wild Coast. In this qualitative study, this paper explored the story of the Wild Coast, in terms of what the state and industry are attempting to do, why local communities are resisting, and more specifically what the struggle in the Wild Coast means for development and the conceptualisation of the meanings of a state.

Material for this paper is based on the traditional and snowball literature review which involved examining the emerging literature on Xolobeni, a documentary study by examining court judgments, letters, and reviewing numerous video materials. The author also joined numerous activist groups on social media, particularly on Facebook and Twitter, to follow up on the relevant events, court dates and judgments, meetings, protests, and other relevant information pieces to be abreast of relevant information on environmentalism generally. A significant part of the literature search revealed that most of the writings on the struggles in the Wild Coast are in the form of media articles, and there is a paucity of scholarly work, such as journal articles and books, signifying that there exists a lack of scholarly attention to the issue of the Wild Coast. A thematic analysis was employed to address the research gap that was noted. The author also visited numerous websites of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), that have been involved in the struggle in the Wild Coast. This paper has offered valuable insights into the non-financial concerns at the community level in the context of extractive industry growth which strengthens the land and spiritual rights of local communities.

4. The importance of intangible cultural heritage in black communities

In her seminal book titled “War against ourselves”, Jackyln Cock, a reputable professor of sociology, narrates the sacredness of the ocean among Xhosa communities through cultural offerings to “abantu bomlambo” (ancestors living in the sea) (Cock, 2007, p. 7). For many Xhosa people, the sea is a sacred place inhabited by ancestors, which also signifies the strong relationship between humans and nature. This Xhosa cosmology and intangible cultural heritage were venerated strongly in the litigation against the seismic survey by Shell SA. It is very seldom that customary and intangible heritage rights are protected by the judiciary. The litigation against Shell SA has entrenched and protected the land rights of indigenous people. The judge went further to state that as much as there are people who may dispute empirically that ancestors are living in the sea, the lived experiences among the Xhosa people support their belief that ancestors are living in the sea, and it is their cultural right for the ancestors to be respected. Therefore, the court contended that the Wild Coast coastline is not only for swimming and scenic views but it is also steeped in customary rituals and livelihoods for coastal communities. The court ordered that the decision to grant the exploration right was unlawful, and procedurally unfair because Shell SA failed to “adequately consult (or consult at all) with interested and affected communities” (Sustaining the Wild Coast & Others and The Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy & Others, 2022, p. 25).

The court enforced the constitutional and customary rights, including customary fishing, and religious rights of the coastal communities, as well as the threat of climate change generally. At issue here are the differences in the conceptualisation of what land is, and is for, between proponents of externally initiated development projects versus local communities. In his classical text, I write what I like, Steve Biko succinctly described the simplicity of African living by giving the example of how Africans handle visitations and conversations. He wrote:

House visiting was always a feature of the elderly folk’s way of life. No reason was needed as a basis for visits. It was part of our deep concern for each other. These are things never done in Westerner’s culture. A visitor to someone’s house, with the exception of friends, is always met with the question “what can I do for you?”. This attitude to see people not as themselves but as agents for some particular function either to one’s disadvantage or advantage is foreign to us … we regard our living together not as an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us but as a deliberate act of God to make us a community of brothers and sisters jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to varied problems of life. Hence in all we do we always place men first and hence all our action is usually joint community oriented action rather than the individualism which is the hallmark of the capitalist approach. (Biko, 2017, p. 46)

In other ways, life in an African context cannot solely be enjoyed through economic benefits through profiting and in quantitative terms, but through varied ways that involve sharing life and spaces that people live in. Thus, decolonial scholars such as Tafira and Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2017, p. 9) remind us that land to Africans was not solely commodified for markets, but was a place to make a living to be passed down from generation to generation through kinship ties. Africans have always had a holistic conception of land, which included economic value, but not excluded from other social phenomena such as spirituality, religion, social interactions, as well as family and the polity. Thus, “Africans never regarded land as a commoditized private, individual and economic asset transferable in monetary and market relations of exchange” (Tafira & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2017, p. 9). Black communities lived in harmony with nature and they had a spiritual connection to the land. Viewed from Biko’s stance, the people of the Wild Coast are threatened by Western conceptions of production, and a capitalist conception of what land is, and is for. In this way, the creation of land as a market commodity, which can be used to extract profits, is a “result of colonial capitalist property relations and colonial jurisprudence, which is counter to African land law” (Tafira & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2017, p. 9). The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has even contended that although globalisation has brought benefits in economic, political, and social terms, including increasing awareness about cultural diversity, globalisation remains a threat to tangible and intangible heritage (UNESCO, 2004).

The state and industry may see the Wild Coast as having the potential to produce massive profits, significant revenue for the state, and jobs for some in quantitative and commercial terms, but for the local communities who are the rightful owners of the land, life is much the broader than commercial production as they have different meanings for their attachment to land. In other words, for many African communities, land is a space for leading a simple life that is devoid of capitalistic conceptions of production. In addition, in an earlier Constitutional Court judgment, penned by the then Chief Justice Ngcobo, the court argued that economic pursuits cannot trump environmental concerns and that any developmental projects must adhere to the principles of sustainable development (Fuel Retailers Association of Southern Africa vs Director-General, Environmental Management, Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, Mpumalanga Province & Others, 2007). Referring to the importance of land to their identity, and how mining will destroy and uproot their lives, Bikini Danca, a Xolobeni villager, was quoted saying,

Without land, we are nothing. We use the land where they want to build the mine. There are guava and banana trees. We fish in the sea. Traditional healers find their muthi there. Sometimes I find plants for my stomach there or menstrual cramps. If they build that mine all that will be destroyed.

Another villager added that “we eat our own vegetables. The only thing we buy from the shop is cooking oil and spices” (Steyn & Damba-Hendrik, 2021a). Referring to the seismic surveys by Shell SA, the spokesperson of ACC, Nonhle Mbuthuma, a brave and militant activist, said that:

we refuse to allow intruders and invaders masked as investors and job creators to milk our land away. We don’t need saviours here. We have our own and we are fine this way. We don’t need Shell. We don’t need any mines here. That is a message that’s been clear from the onset … We survive holistically from the waters, the seas and the soil. Our connection and relationship to nature here is cultural and sacred. It is beyond elite and greedy lines. We see how the government has always turned their backs against us, often siding with greedy corporations who want to drill minerals out of this area and pocket the profits, pushing us further away from what is rightfully ours. (Xolo, 2021)

5. Development for whom?

“People say the road will bring development, but my question is: whose development. Who will be the owner of that development?” asked Sinegugu Zukulu, an environmental activist from Xolobeni (Steyn & Damba-Hendrik, 2021b). What is development when it seeks to disempower communities and disrupt their ways of living in the name of development? According to Sinegugu Zukulu, he feared that if the road construction project went ahead, their customary land would be privatised for the benefit of wealthy outsiders, financial elites, and traditional leaders through large tourism projects and other businesses, while the local people would be reduced to cheap labour and exploited for capitalist gains. Bennie (2018, p. 34), a scholar with intimate details about the Wild Coast story argues that economic development associated with job creation is deeply problematic if it ruins the environment and disrupts the land-based livelihoods that the people of the Wild Coast rely on. The Wild Coast communities desire a kind of development from below, a development that they can control, which includes the construction of roads, electricity, piped water, and support for tourism, as well as agriculture, and small-scale fishing businesses. As expressed by one participant who was interviewed by Bennie (2011, p. 50), “we want development that doesn’t remove us, to develop between us, not remove us”. Most importantly, these communities assert that they must be involved in crafting solutions to their challenges. Here, the state has become a powerful assistant for the mining industry. Although the state has an obligation to meet socio-economic needs through development initiatives such as mining to increase state revenue and create jobs, the state’s position in Xolobeni is awkward because these communities have demonstrated a vibrant land-based livelihood system, which the state ought to be supporting.

Writing in 2011, David Hallowes noted the logic of these externally initiated, state-assisted, and industry-driven projects by noting that “those who control development do very well out of it and argue that it is for the benefit of all. The evidence does not support this. Rather, as the rich are made richer, the poor are made poorer” (Hallowes, 2011, p. 2). Part of the problem is that industrial development, and modernity as versions of development, have been naturalised, not just in the literature but in the mindset of policy-makers. Hallowes (2011, p. 79) adds that the notion “that developing countries should aspire to become developed, that they should see the image of the future in the rich world and the means of realising industrialisation is thus naturalized in the language of international and national institutions.”

One is therefore tempted to ask: what is development when the local people’s power is infantilised, and when their land is sought to be sacrificed and be appropriated by powerful external actors? The struggle over the Wild Coast also helps us to understand the different conceptualisation of what development is, as shown by political ecologists that “power relations may be reflected in conflicting perceptions, discourses and knowledge claims about development and ecological processes … Political and economic elites have invariably sought to justify specific, usually highly unequal, patterns of human use of the environment in terms of ‘the greater social good’” (Bryant, 1998, p. 87). Evidence from other mining towns, especially in the Platinum Belt of Limpopo, shows that a mining company fenced off and privatised water sources and land, which constrained crop production and consequently undermined food security (Zamchiya, 2022).

6. Whose state is it?

In examining the meanings of the state, it is ironic that the state has ignored the kind of development that local communities want and is in favour of “imposed development”, Ordinarily, the state is not something out there or just an entity made of state officials, but it derives its power from the local people through constitutional means such as voting. The state has an obligation and a mandate to meet the needs and interests of the people. But how do we understand the state in a space like the Wild Coast, where the state has used its legislative power to assist globally networked extractive firms to appropriate parts of the Wild Coast? According to Bryant (1998, p. 86) “power is reflected in the ability of one actor to control the environment of another”. Here, the state has positioned itself, not only as an enabler of the industry's goals but also as an entity that has ignored the local concerns, interests, views, and various forms of home-grown development. Perhaps, the major weakness of the state’s position is that while the track record of the mining industry has largely been problematic, the state has ignored the material and spiritual benefits that the Wild Coast communities derive from the land.

Here, the state’s position is conflictual. On the one hand, the state presents itself as a developer and a job creator to improve socio-economic rights while desecrating on the land, which local communities see as a place to lead a life. On the other hand, it has a constitutional obligation through the constitution to protect the environment, and to protect the spirituality, cultural practices, and religious practices of the local people including on the Wild Coast. The state has had to be taken to courts in many instances as it consistently attempted to outmaneuver and manipulate local communities, which begs the question about the interests the state is furthering. The Minister of Minerals and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, who has for the longest time been a staunch supporter of mining, castigated anti-mining environmentalism as “colonialism and apartheid of a special type masqueraded as a great interest for environmental protection” (Sgqolana, 2021).

What is even more troubling is the extent to which the proposal for developmental projects has divided communities through violence, intimidation, acts of favouritism and distrust among villagers in the struggle for over a decade. Mahlatsi (2018) argues that the collaboration of the state with mining firms, to the point of conducting crafty consultation processes has produced toxic consequences for mining towns. There are also claims that those villagers who support mining were given food parcels and solar panels at some point, and there is a general sense of deep toxic divisions (Washinyira, 2016a). In one of the videos, local communities are seen booing an annoyed AmaMpondo king. In his response, the king argued assertively, “you can boo all you want. The development will happen. We are not here to ask for your permission. We can’t be booed by three or two people. I don’t mind being booed by you” (eNCA, 2019). There are also suspicions of bribery and other forms of malpractice to entice people to support mining. The ACC has claimed that ever since Inkosi Baleni, a traditional leader (of one of the communities in the Wild Coast), became the director of a company applying for a sand mining license, communal divisions have worsened. Furthermore, SANRAL has been accused of favouring consultations with business people, politicians, and traditional leaders who favour the mining lobby and want to profit from the road. Inkosi Baleni initially resisted the construction of the road, until he was offered a directorship of Xolobeni Mining Company (XolCo), and a BEE beneficiary of the mining project (Steyn & Damba-Hendrik, 2021b). In her findings, Mahlatsi (2018) shows that a significant number of people in Xolobeni, for example, a community in the Wild Coast, hold the state responsible for the chaos that is happening because of poor and crafty consultation processes which have divided people. Before the mining proposals, the community was not at war with each other, but when the mining proposals came, even family members were on opposing sides in some cases. This study remains appropriate in demonstrating the need for strong public participation mechanisms in policy formulation and implementation in development projects. Most importantly, this study comes at a time when the South African courts are rejecting developmental projects and policies that have faulty public participation processes (Bengwenyama Minerals Pty Ltd and Others v Genorah Resources Pty Ltd and Others, 2010; Mogale and Others v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others, 2023).

7. Conclusion

Much of the discourse around the voices of local communities in the Wild Coast of South Africa shows that local people fear being disempowered and sacrificed by the state and industry for external interests. More importantly, local communities fear the destruction of their African ways of living centred on spirituality, religion, and cultural customs which require access to land and the sea. In examining these dynamics in the struggle of the Wild Coast, the paper deployed the political ecology approach, and the notion of “sacrifice zones” to examine these externally initiated, state-assisted, and industry-driven projects.

Using the “sacrifice zones” notion and the political ecology approach helped to bring to the fore the power behind these projects, that is, the state power through its legislation, and the financial power of the industry (be it mining or construction). The use of the political ecology approach and the notion of the “sacrifice zones” has also helped the researcher to question what the state is, and what development is, and for whom? The political ecology approach helped to unpack the power dynamics and authority around accessing the environment, and the different competing interests thereof. It shows that these externally initiated, state-assisted and industry-driven projects are likely to disempower local communities, while the elites will benefit in the form of partnerships, profits, royalties, and other benefits. The “sacrifice zones” notion helped explore the externally interested players that are seeking to sacrifice the environment for external interests, without much benefit for local communities.

The main thesis of this paper is that local communities in the Wild Coast are not rejecting development, rather, they are rejecting an imposition that is masked with developmentalism. The state’s position in the Wild Coast is aligned with the broader imposition of “development” projects in purportedly weaker communities, albeit with exaggerated spinoffs, while ignoring the local environment, priorities, cultures, traditions, religion, concerns, and views. The paper has demonstrated that local communities are not resisting development as some state officials have purported, rather, local communities are rejecting the imposition of these “developmental” projects. Although the state and industry present such projects as game-changing projects that promote national inclusive development in the form of public goods, African values, intangible cultural heritage, norms, and development cannot be solely simplified in economic and quantitative terms. Development that ruins the environment and disregards Africans’ ways of living becomes unfavourable, given the fact that mining has always had a negative track record, either environmentally, socially, or politically. Mining has always sacrificed local communities for appropriation by external, powerful actors. The importance of intangible cultural heritage, religion, culture, tradition, spirituality, and other non-economic aspects in African settings is embedded throughout the paper. This paper did not aim to infantilise the importance of transformation and economic development in former Homelands, but it used previous cases of “developmental” projects to argue that such externally initiated projects on balance often caused more harm than good to local communities. The uniqueness of African values warrants that the proponents of development must understand that quantitative and economic measures are not more important than intangible cultural heritage, spirituality, culture, tradition, and other non-economic aspects.

What local communities in the Wild Coast require is sufficient participation, respect for their voices, and most importantly to be assisted in pursuing what they value the most. As shown in this paper, local communities have largely assertively rejected mining and seismic surveys. Here, although local communities understand the importance of improving the road infrastructure, the construction of the N2 has been resisted because it could be linked to mining. There is also evidence which shows that mining would not benefit local communities equitably, in that the loss of farmland will not be adequately compensated by the creation of jobs because of the skills requirement in the mines and that the ACC prefers supporting tourism, agriculture, and environmental protection (Bennie, 2019). In fact, Zamchiya (2019) and Bennie (2019) show that people in the Wild Coast are food-sufficient and depend on multiple self-sustaining land-based livelihood streams, such as cash income, crop production, ocean resource harvesting, animal ownership, and social grants to cushion the main source of incomes. It, therefore, becomes questionable and troubling why the state is not interested in assisting communities to engage in safer developmental projects such as agriculture, in favour of mining, which has proven to be less beneficial to communities. The experience in the Wild Coast reinforces the view that no matter how great developmental projects may appear to state planners, they must be negotiated properly with local communities, and not be imposed. As a parting note, this paper recommends that future research projects need to explore the unique ways in which local communities could design homegrown developmental projects that do not harm the environment and the intangible heritage African communities.

Acknowledgments

I wish to appreciate Dr Teboho Mosuoe-Tsietsi for her comments and edits.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2023.2282798

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba

Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation (IPATC), at the University of Johannesburg, in South Africa. His key research activities are on land, anti-mining struggles, shale gas mining, community health dynamics, and many other areas. This article forms part of his broader research on the land questions in Southern Africa.