Residents and farmers in the Verlorenvlei valley are resisting plans for an open-cast mine to produce tungsten, says a report in Business Report.

Verlorenvlei was declared a Ramsar site in 1991. The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. Bongani Minerals, headed by Kimberley diamond rewashing merchant Trevor Pikwane, has applied to the Department of Minerals and Energy for the right to mine tungsten and molybdenum ore on farms in the district near Elands Bay, northwest of Cape Town. Farmers and landowners in the fertile valley upstream from the wetland have been refusing to allow access to their land for an environmental impact survey to be carried out by Aubrey Withers, an environmental consultant based in Stellenbosch. Mining has been bitterly opposed by Mary Slack, daughter of the late Harry Oppenheimer who owns a horseracing stud in the valley; Bennie van der Merwe, the owner of Moutonshoek farm, where mining is set to take place; and Cape Town engineer Garry Sheard, who runs a small lavender farm on the vlei.
Full report in Business Report
Ramsar Convention