groundWork 2020 News - The Killing of Somkhele Environmental Activist, Fikile Ntshangase groundwork.org.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from groundwork.org.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
First published in Daily Maverick 168 Weekly Newspaper
First you might dangle some carrots in front of an impoverished rural community. Then you might pin potential job losses associated with those carrots on the environmental activists who oppose, say, the mining company claiming to offer those jobs. This might have consequences.
In the case of Our Burning Planet Hero of the Year Fikile Ntshangase, attorney Kirsten Youens and several environmental organisations have suggested that this, at least, was a strategy employed by a coal miner operating alongside rural communities in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Representing the interests of families living on Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve’s eastern border, Youens accused coal miner Tendele of inciting violence among a “deeply divided” local people. Tendele has repeatedly denied this accusation.
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Nonhle Mbuthuma grew up learning how to farm and produce food. Her fondest childhood memories include helping her parents cultivate sweet potatoes and other crops in her village in Xolobeni, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.
Today, she is an environmental activist and defender of ancestral land – a position that exposes her to constant threats of violence from those she opposes, and means that she must always have a bodyguard when she leaves her home.
“Just the other day, I filed a police report after receiving threatening text messages. I know they are serious, we have lost so many [activists], but I cannot stop because this is our land,’ says an impassioned Mbuthuma.