Environmental Justice: The Ants, the River, and Coal
Sipho Mhlongo
The first time I heard about the black ants was on a Tuesday, June 3, 2025, at the community hall when Gogo Mncube set her walking stick down and said, “We used to call the children to find them when someone cut themselves in the field.” Now we walk and walk, and there are none.” She was reminiscing about a species of large black ant that thrived in the sandy soils north of our settlement. For generations, traditional healers in Normandien crushed these ants to clean and seal small wounds, a practice deeply rooted in our community’s history. But that knowledge is fading as the environment changes.
Three years ago, mining about Gardia Coal MSi and the larger Future Coal block began, armed with water use licenses and government approval. The representatives at the hall meetings spoke of jobs and development coming to a community that had primarily relied on cattle, crops, and the Ncandu River. Initially, about ten local contracts emerged, providing some families, like the Sipho Malevu’s, their first steady paycheck. However, this so-called development came at a steep cost. It cleared patches of forest to build haul roads and encroached upon the sandy soils where the black ants once thrived, burying their habitat under layers of overburden and compacted rock.
“Some of us got work, some didn’t,” I noted during a recent meeting. “Now there’s tension at the hall meetings because we don’t agree on whether the mine helps or harms.” While some families welcomed the short-term financial boost, others felt the strain as rental prices skyrocketed due to an influx of outside workers. The immediate cash flow was quickly overshadowed by losses of long-term resources: grazing land, honey production, fertile soil, and the unique medicinal species linked to our ancestral land.
The Ihawulezwe Social Movement’s Environmental Justice Desk, which I’m part of, has been monitoring the areas around the mine footprint weekly. Our team, mostly composed of women, collects water samples from the Ncandu River, documents dust accumulation on leaves, logs sightings of species, and gathers testimonies from elders and healers. The data tells a troubling story of ecological change. Following heavy rains or blasting, the river runs brown, sediment saturates the riverbed where reeds, frogs, and indigenous fish once flourished, and key wetlands that filtered runoff are now wiped out, restricting access to vital water sources for cattle, wildlife, and various birds.
The plight of the black ants is intertwined with this grim reality. Gogo Mncube lamented that the sandy soils, once home to the ants, are now buried. Local beekeepers are reporting reduced honey yields, and monitors have recorded a decline in sightings of duiker and other small antelope. Although mining companies insist they adhere to regulations and possess rehabilitation plans, residents argue that these plans fail to restore what has been lost. The detrimental impacts far exceed employment figures or rehabilitation timelines.
Despite the promises of advanced technology, the new haul trucks and dust suppression systems have not improved the conditions for residents. Daily, clouds of dust coat grazing lands, gardens, and laundry. Farmers have documented negative effects on their crops, and two families are grappling with structural cracks in their homes as a result of blasting. Parents now worry about their children navigating a louder, busier road on their way to aftercare at the hall, where the once tranquil environment has been replaced with the chaos of mining operations and night blasting.
This issue goes beyond industrial progress; it strikes at our cultural identity and environmental health. Recently, Ihawulezwe Social Movement petitioned the Department of Mineral Resources, and while a site visit occurred in February 2026, no public report has been released. In the meantime, residents are gathering documentation and testimonies to assert their rights, emphasizing that land once used for grazing and forests is now an active mine, drastically altering access and control over vital resources. This struggle embodies the fight for land use, public participation, and environmental protection issues vital to sustaining our cultural and healing practices.
“We’re not against development,” expressed a member of the Nomvula Dlomo – Bafana Traditional Council. “We’re asking: development for whom? Our grazing is smaller, our river is sick, our bush is quiet, the ants we used for medicine are gone, and we weren’t part of the decisions that led to all of this.”
At the community hall, discussions have shifted from rainfall and grazing rotation to urgent topics of blasting schedules, species decline, water test results, and the implications of “Future Coal” on the ecosystem that our children will inherit. Normandien now stands at a crossroads between two stark realities: the agricultural and ecological systems that have been meticulously maintained by our generations, and the industrial scars left by coal mining.
On my last visit, I walked the old sandy stretch with Gogo Mncube once more. Neither of us expected to find anything. But she looked. “I’ll check again next week,” she resolved. “Some things don’t come back unless you look.”
