While Coal of Africa Limited’s (CoAL) Vele Colliery is set to continue with operations, it has come to light that the Mapungubwe National Park might lose its World Heritage status.

During the World Heritage Committee’s 35th session held in Paris at the end of June, the committee reaffirmed its concerns about the “potential adverse impact of the approved mining site”.

This follows a World Heritage Centre reactive monitoring mission that visited the Vele site, as well as the park, to consider the status of mining permissions. Mapungubwe is about 7km from Vele´s site. The mission´s visit took place during November of last year, shortly after CoAL had to cease certain activities at the mine, following a Green Scorpions compliance notice. At that stage, the site was a reported 95% complete.

Mapungubwe was listed as a site of “outstanding universal value” in 2003 because of its significance as a trove of ancient African civilisation. According to the committee, South Africa had committed to “continue halting the mining” until a joint World Heritage Centre and International Council of Monuments and Sites monitoring mission could take place in November this year. However, about two weeks ago, the Department of Environmental Affairs gave CoAL the go-ahead, with CoAL´s CEO, Mr John Wallington, stating that Vele was expected to be up and running within six to nine months´ time.

Following these new developments, the committee has urged South Africa to submit an updated report on the state of conservation of Mapungubwe by February next year for examination by their 36th session. The committee said that if mining activities were to continue, the inscription of Mapungubwe as a World Heritage site might be in danger. Inscription on the list ensures a site protection under the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage Convention, as well as possible financial assistance from the World Heritage Fund.

The committee was "extremely concerned" about the potential impact of the proposed mine, power station and ancillary development.

"In terms of both culture and nature,any development of this site could have far-reaching implications for the sustainability of the Limpopo Basin, could derail international agreements on the transfrontier conservation area and could completely destroy a landscape that has the potential to contribute significantly to an understanding of the wider settlement history of Mapungubwe. It could also pollute the Limpopo River," it said.

In addition, the committee have urged that the buffer zone, of about 100 000ha, around Mapungubwe be demarcated as a matter of urgency, seeing that there is currently no buffer zone on the east side of the park and colliery. A buffer zone was envisaged at the time of Mapungubwe’s inscription on the World Heritage List to protect the boundary within South Africa. These boundaries have only been partly set out and have yet to be presented to the committee.

The coal seam that runs through Vele stretches to the west, through the buffer zone, and, claims the committee, has attracted other mining companies who want to apply for mining rights in the area.

According to the committee, the buffer zone includes the Venetia-Limpopo Nature Reserve, Vhembe Nature Reserve, and Limpopo Valley Game Reserve. The buffer zone has been ‘proclaimed’ but not submitted to the World Heritage Committee for approval.