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Chinese company accused of environmental damage

The Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) is pushing for the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to act against Chinese-owned Namibia Huaxin Resources and Exploration for environmental damage and non-compliance with the regulations of the Environmental Management Act.
If the ministry fails to take any action by next week, the Anabeb Conservancy Committee, represented by the LAC, will consider applying for an interdict against the company.
The Chinese company has an exclusive prospecting licence (EPL) north of Palmwag in the Kunene Region where it is prospecting for gold. The EPL lies inside the Anabeb conservancy.
According to a ministerial environmental questionnaire for prospecting in Namibia dated 16 January 2012, the company stated that it is exploring on the EPL 4730 for base and rare metals, industrial minerals, and precious metals. The EPL is for three years, effective from November 2011 to November 2014.
The questionnaire is compulsory to all EPL holders, and responses provided in it are regarded as commitments which will become part of an environmental contract between the prospectors and the Namibian government.
On the basis of this questionnaire, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and Ministry of Mines and Energy either accept, or reject, or require more information on the environmental commitments made.
In this questionnaire, the Chinese company said it uses a Nissan 4X4 double-cab bakkie and a shovel as earthmoving equipment. Other machinery it said it would use are a diamond driller, a magnetometer and generators.
Asked to describe the environmental damage that is likely to result from the use of vehicles and machinery within the prospecting area, the company committed to “use only the old roads, and choose to walk into the working area, so the vehicle is no damage to the environment”.
Asked how it would control the movement of vehicles and machinery to minimise environmental damage, the company again responded: “We use old roads and geologist will walk into working area so vehicle will be no damage to the environment. After drilling we backfill and restore original.”
It also undertook to source water from a nearby farm, and to inform the communities there of all its activities and “get their permission”.
It said it would also “keep all things original and keep the place quiet and take all rubbish back and dispose in garbage station”.
But the LAC’s Land, Environment and Development (Lead) researcher, Willem Odendaal, said all these commitments made are hogwash.  
“People get a free hand, they give false information and nothing is being done about it,” said Odendaal. The LAC on 22 February wrote a letter to the ministry’s environmental commissioner, Theo Nghitila, that the Chinese company had arrived at the conservancy and summarily started to bulldoze the area that is subject to the EPL. It said a road had also been constructed.
The LAC further provided Nghitila with photographic evidence of the road construction, and destruction of the rare and protected plant Welwitschia mirabilis.

For the complete article, please see The Namibian.