OVERVIEW OF THE IMPACT OF MINING ON THE ... - IIED pubs

of the population of South Africa’s Gauteng Province, as well as parts of the populations of the Northern and
Mpumalanga Provinces. The Olifants basin contains virtually all of the important coalmines and thermal power
stations, as well as critically important agricultural areas, towns and cities. Consequently, the Olifants basin is
correctly considered to house the energy heartland of South Africa.
Table 5.2: Population statistics for the two SADC states comprising the Olifants basin. [Data obtained from
SARDC (1996) and Basson et al. (1997)].
Country
Total
Population of
Country
(Millions)
Country
Population in
Basin (Millions)
Proportion of
Country
Population
(%)
Proportion of
Basin Population
(%)
Mozambique 19.980 275,000 1.4 87.1
South Africa 43.421 1,850,000 4.3 12.9
Totals: 63.401 2,125,000 3.4 100.0
In Mozambique, the Olifants basin supports several scattered communities and small to moderate-sized
settlements, but no towns or cities; the Mozambican population of the Olifants basin is essentially rural in
character.
In contrast, the much larger South Africans sector of the Olifants basin supports several large and mediumsized
towns as well as numerous smaller communities and subsistence farmers. Throughout the South African
portions of the Olifants basin, a wide variety of mining operations as well as different forms of agriculture
(subsistence and commercial cultivation, game farming, livestock and dairy production) provide the economic
cornerstone for development in the basin.
Both South Africa and Mozambique have “skewed” population distributions, and experience large-scale
migration from rural areas to urban settlements. The Olifants basin in South Africa contains areas of extensive
rural and peri-urban populations that occupy former Apartheid self-governing “homelands”. As a consequence
of past iniquities, a large proportion of the basin’s population is extremely poor and lack access to basic services
and amenities such as clean water and adequate sanitation.
Similar to other parts of southern Africa, land is a critically important resource throughout the Olifants basin and
the livelihoods of residents and the national economies of both basin states depend on access to land (Chenje,
2000). However, the specific types of land use that are practiced in the basin are controlled by climatic factors,
water availability and, importantly, by land tenure arrangements. A large proportion of the land in the Olifants
basin is under communal or customary forms of tenure, and land ownership is considered to be one of the major
constraints to proper land use and conservation (Chenje, 2000).
Overcrowding and insecure ownership in the smaller communal farming areas (e.g. the Shingwedzi, Selati, and
Middle Olifants sub-catchments in the Olifants basin) is a primary source of land degradation in the basin. This
feature is a critically important driver of poverty within the Olifants basin and is associated closely with declining
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