BREAKING NEWS: Makhado Colliery ground to a halt on 1 October 2026, five days before the Minister dismissed the appeal against it. It must not restart. We call on the IDC to ensure that not one rand more of public money is poured into the pit at Makhado; not one more hectare of the Vhembe stripped for a mine that cannot honour its debts or pay for what it has broken. The Vhembe will no longer be sacrificed to a foreign coal mining company that cannot pay for what it has broken.

MC Mining built Makhado while the appeal to decide whether the mine could be built at all remained undecided. More than five years have passed. Then, on 6 October 2026, Minister David Maynier dismissed the appeal.

By then, the mine was built. This is our report-back to everyone who signed, shared and stood with the 2025 campaign.

International Rights of Nature Tribunal Judgement and the MMSEZ Sacrifice Zone Unfolding in South Africa.

The world condemns South Africa. The neo-colonial industrial advance accelerates.

IILEGAL COAL MINE FIRES UP AS SMELTER GETS A MURKY GREENLIGHT IN CHINESE MEGA INDUSTRIAL ZONE IN LIMPOPO — WHILE THE WORLD CONDEMNS US FOR “ECOCIDE”

On Thursday, 14 August 2025, Living Limpopo, Wits University’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies and The Herd Nature Reserve, supported by All Rise Attorneys for Environmental and Climate Justice, submitted comprehensive formal comments and objections on the draft Environmental Impact Assessment Report for the planned ferrochrome/ferroalloys smelter in the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ).

“MC Mining’s contempt for South Africa’s environmental safeguards cannot be ignored”. MC Mining’s total disregard for due process has raised serious governance concerns about the China-South Africa government-backed MMSEZ— and the risk of foreign investors being allowed to violate South Africa’s environmental protection standards.

Watch a clip from the explosive show that aired on DSTV’s high-profile current affairs programme, Carte Blanche, on 16 March 2025, featuring the Living Limpopo campaign. The “Baobab Bomb” episode trains a lens on the controversial MMSEZ mega-industrial project being developed in Limpopo Province, exposes the links to Chinese coal interests - and reveals shocking footage of the strip-mining that has begun illegally in the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve.

SIGN THE PETITION

CALLING ON THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR AND MINISTER DION GEORGE TO ACT AGAINST CHINESE-OWNED MC MINING FOR VIOLATING SOUTH AFRICAN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

STEALING LIMPOPO’s WATER: At the confluence of coal, steel and sacred water. Highlights from the explosive new podcast episode on Just Us & the Climate, exposing the threat to Limpopo’s water posed by the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone and exploitation of the surrounding coalfield.

Every minute and every rand of public money spent by the government on planning for Limpopo’s future is devoted to mining coal and shovelling it into blast furnaces on the edge of the coalpits to make unwanted steel, and emitting 33 million tons of carbon dioxide every year for the next 30 years.