Diamonds the Richtersveld’s worst friend as infighting and illegal mining tears community apart

In the farthest corners of the Richtersveld in the Northern Cape beneath the barren and dry land, lies a wealth of minerals being extracted through alluvial diamond mining – both legal and illegal. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhzBm5YKK-w&t=14s

This has been done for decades, but above these mineral-enriched lands are perhaps some of the most impoverished communities in the country.

Lekkersing is known for extreme temperatures. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Alleged illegal diamond mining is taking place all over the Richtersveld – on community-owned farming land and inside the Richtersveld National Park in the Northern Cape along the Orange River – leaving the land and the !Ama (Nama) people of the Richtersveld in devastation. 

According to some of the !Ama community in the Northern Cape, and to NGO Protect The West Coast, this devastation and the informal and allegedly illegal mining stems from a successful land claim gone wrong.

Youngsters from the !Ama (Nama) community in Sanndrift perform the Nama Stap dance outside a community meeting held by Protect the West Coast at the Sanddrift Community Hall on 18 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Daily Maverick travelled with Protect The West Coast (PTWC), a non-profit organisation dedicated to fighting illegal and destructive mining on the West Coast of South Africa, and witnessed a landscape of devastation, active and abandoned mining operations as well as the state of some towns in the Richtersveld – including Alexander Bay, Port Nolloth and Sanddrift.

The trip to the Northern Cape followed a previous fact-finding trip by PTWC in 2024 when the NGO said it witnessed “rampant mining destroying a vast area of coast”, community-owned farms on the Orange River and even parts of the Richtersveld National Park. 

PTWC also noted that the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020 and the remoteness of the area had “opened the floodgates to a mining deluge” that pushed aside other Richtersveld land uses and economic drivers.

Chris Kimber, CEO of Lower Orange River (LOR) Diamonds, which operates in the Richtersveld and on the banks of the Orange River, sat down with Daily Maverick for an interview about this, with general manager Marius Coetzee.

Kimber said that their operations in the Richtersveld included an area within the park along the Orange River as part of their mining licence issued by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) in 2018, covering 41,343 hectares, which had previously been operated by Transhex.

Kimber confirmed that the area along the Orange River in which they operated was frequently targeted by illegal and informal miners, numbering as many as 4,000 during the time that they had operated in the area. Some of these, he said, were informed by and worked with community members in the affected towns.

A weathered informational poster on the !Ama community outside a diamond mine owned by Alexkor RMC Pooling and Sharing Joint Venture in Alexander Bay, Northern Cape on 17 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

However, he said that they tried to deal with this through stringent security measures and monitoring, which was scoring successes with police involvement, once illegal activity was picked up. LOR also set up the  Community Artisanal Mining (CAM) project, which was established after 2018 when illegal mining had taken the area to breaking point.

Mining operations in the Richtersveld

The communities affected are Kuboes, Sanddrift, Lekkersing and Eksteenfontein, which are also the four towns involved in the Richtersveld land claim.

As explained by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG), in December 1998, the Richtersveld communities instituted a land claim against the government and Alexkor.

In 2003, after protracted legal proceedings, the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the Richtersveld communities and in 2007, the government, Alexkor and the claimant communities reached a settlement agreement (Deed of Settlement) which was made an order of court. 

Mining operations in the Richtersveld, Northern Cape on 18 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

The Richtersveld Communal Property Association (CPA) was established to manage and benefit from the land returned to the Richtersveld community, but community members told Daily Maverick that they had received no benefits. 

The communities in the towns involved remain in severe poverty with almost zero opportunity prospects, limited hospital availability, and some schools more than an hour away. 

The PMG noted that the conflict in the Richtersveld was between members of the CPA and had led to expensive litigation which did not benefit the community. 

The Alexkor RMC Pooling and Sharing Joint Venture (PSJV) was established to oversee the mining on this land and the revenue generated from diamond mining.

It is responsible for the pooled land mining rights of the RMC and marine mining rights of Alexkor, and according to Dr Trish Hanekom, chairperson of the Joint Venture, this does not include the alleged areas of illegal mining.

The workings of the PSJV are governed by a Deed of Settlement and Unanimous Resolution setting out the working arrangement for the JV (51% owned by Alexkor and 49% owned by the community) which was established to oversee the mining and the revenue generated from diamond mining taking place.

“The CPA was under administration at the time of the appointment of the current Interim Board appointed in February 2022. The CPA held elections and was reconstituted in February 2023. The PSJV Board was reconstituted in June 2023 and is comprised of three directors representing Alexkor and three court-appointed directors representing the RMC. The three RMC representatives are designated by the CPA to serve as directors of the RMC once the RMC is properly constituted,” Hanekom said.

The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) told Daily Maverick that the mediation process to resolve the Richtersveld CPA dispute was ongoing and that the department was in the process of appointing a CPA Registrar (as per the amended CPA Act – October 2024) who would deal decisively with all CPA disputes and challenges.

The current executive committee (Exco) of the Richtersveld CPA was elected when the CPA was placed under judicial administration in February 2020, which ended in February 2023.

“There are different interpretations in terms of the term of office of Exco. The department is working with the legal team of the CPA to resolve the matter and provide clarity,” the department said.

When we asked if DALRRD, the CPA and Alexkor could provide details on how revenues generated from land and mineral rights have been managed or allocated, DALRRD responded that the CPA had not yet submitted the audited financial statements, and thus the question was difficult to answer.

On the matter of resolving disputes within, the department said it was currently intervening and had set in motion a process to resolve this matter.

Richtersveld CPA (RCPA) chairperson Nicodemus Swartbooi told Daily Maverick he was unaware of any concerned member in the RCPA, and that to his knowledge this issue had been resolved between them and the department.

“We held our Special General and AGMs on a regular basis as guided by our constitution whereby our members raise their concerns. These members represent a faction of two or three members who are trying to derail the plans of the RCPA [in] which they will not succeed. 

“In our last Annual General Meeting of 20 July 2024, over 300 members of the RCPA dismissed with disdain the concerned members (faction) represented by Martinus Fredericks,” Swartbooi said.

Veteran mining activist Andries Joseph from Lekkersing (left) and Martinus Fredericks, a leader of the !Ama tribe, in the Northern Cape on 17 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

DFFE inspecting alleged illegal diamond mining operations

The Richtersveld National Park, which forms part of the Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, is on communal land and operates as a contractual national park that is jointly managed by SANParks and the community. 

JP Louw, Head of Communications at SANParks, told Daily Maverick that the contract for managing the park allowed for alternate economic activities to be conducted as agreed upon with the landowners (ie the community). This included mining and stock farming.

Daily Maverick shared satellite imagery of what appeared to be new mining activity within the NP from 2023-2025 with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), along with queries about whether this activity had been authorised and whether the department was aware of it.

In response, we were informed that officials from the DFFE and the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) subsequently undertook a comprehensive inspection from 20 to 24 January 2025  in and around the park. 

DFFE spokesperson Peter Mbelengwa said that “the focus of the inspection is to assess the impacts of mining activities around the park and to evaluate the general compliance of these activities. The findings of the inspection will be assessed to determine if mining is taking place and if so, if authorisations were issued to permit such activities.”

What the communities say

Joseph Obies from the !Ama community in Alexander Bay on 17 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Daily Maverick spoke to a variety of members from the !Ama (Nama) community from the Richtersveld.

Joseph Obies from the !Ama community in Alexander Bay told Daily Maverick that “what belongs to us and what has been given to us – I cannot say we have received it with full rights… profitably from it, there is nothing. We have always struggled as Nama people here in the Richtersveld.

“There is work here, but not for us as local residents in the community because the contractors who work here come with their own workers. So, it’s one, two, or a few of us who get the job,” he said.

“We have diamond mining places all around us. But, if you look at the circumstances and what the place looks like, you won’t believe that these are diamond mining places. Because we are the people who suffer the most here,” Obies said.

Obies said there was only a primary school in the town of Kuboes. So for high school, children had to find a way to get to Alexander Bay with local bus services, which took them back and forth every day, an hour each way. 

Mining operations in Alexander Bay, Northern Cape, on 17 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel).

In terms of a hospital, Obies said all they had was a day clinic, so if emergency care or operations were needed, they had to travel to Port Nolloth. 

Obies was a mineworker, but was retrenched in 2008. He then worked as a transport driver, and today is unemployed.

“We have leaders here but I can’t say for sure if they are leaders because they are supposed to be there to guide us, help us, and build us up… But it is very heartsore to see what is here now.

“If you go down to our farms, you will see that there are contractors who mine on the farmlands. I don’t know how they managed it.

“I am also one of those who should benefit from what they are doing there, but nothing. I don’t know where that money is going. At the end of the day, you just hear it’s the community’s land. But the community gets nothing out of it,” Obies said.

Thomas Swartz, a resident of Sanddrrift and a former excavator operator in the surrounding mining area, spoke to Daily Maverick outside a community meeting held by Protect the West Coast at the Sanddrift Community Hall on 18 January 2025.

Sanddrift, a small town in the Richtersveld in the Northern Cape, on the banks of the Orange River is surrounded by mining operations. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

A community meeting held by Protect the West Coast at the Sanddrift Community Hall in the Northern Cape on 18 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Wilhelmina Bantam, a resident of Sanddrrift in the Northern Cape, at a community meeting held by Protect the West Coast at the Sanddrift Community Hall on 18 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

“The problem we are sitting with is the mine houses that came here after the Transhex was finished… the way they treat us, how they treated our people here… there is no progress here after they took over.”

Swarts said that this keeps them in the cycle of poverty. There were minimal and almost no employment opportunities in their communities, he said. 

“Our children here have to go out to the nearby town to look for work because work is very scarce here with them. The ones here are mines, but they only take minimally – one or two from the town,” Swarts said.

This was echoed by others, including Wilhelmina Bantam, a resident of Sanddrift, and Gerard Hans, who was born in Kuboes but lives in Alexander Bay and used to work for Transhex. 

Hans told Daily Maverick outside the community meeting: “I am not happy about the circumstances in the Richtersveld because we are too depressed, we are overrun, we are just seen as nothing, by any of [the] mines.

A diamond mine owned by Alexkor RMC Pooling and Sharing Joint Venture in Alexander Bay, Northern Cape on 17 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

“We are unemployed, most of the Richtersveld [people] are unemployed. We don’t get work on our own land. Our circumstances are bad. The ambulance didn’t come here because the road was too bad. They absolutely refuse to come. The hospital is in Port Nolloth,” he said.

Responding to allegations by community members that they had received no benefits, Swartbooi said that members were working in the PSJV, members had mining contracts at the mines, and educators in their communities were paid by the PSJV members. 

Swartbooi said, “These allegations are not true because our community benefits from Alexkor, but not as we wanted due to the fact that there are always negative influences from outside which [do] not give the leaders of the Richtersveld their chance to serve their members properly.”

Swartbooi said there were infights caused by “outsiders” that made it difficult for the CPA.

Infighting in the communities remains rife. LOR CEO Kimber said that they had numerous “community leaders” coming forward to LOR pleading for monetary handouts in return for community support.

When asked to provide details about how revenues generated from land and mineral rights had been managed or allocated by the CPA, Swartbooi did not provide this, but said that the community had shares in some of the mines in “the land of the CPA” and in those that they did not, he said they were in dialogues to ensure that members got the maximum benefit from the mines.

On the severe poverty that remained in these communities, Swartbooi said, “There are measures in place to ensure that we break this chain of poverty in our communities as we are one of the richest communities in the world, therefore it is important for outsiders to leave us in peace so that we can start implementing our plans that we have for our communities.

“These developments take time and as long as outsiders influence our members negatively, it will promote the poverty of our people.” DM

Disclosure: Some of the travel costs to the Richtersveld in the far Northern Cape were sponsored by Protect The West Coast (PTWC) as part of an initiative to enable journalists to gain firsthand insight into the ongoing issues in the region.