Exxaro and Mountain Biking. The right fit?

[kandui]

I watched the Carte Blanche insert on dune mining in Northern KZN last night. To make a profit, Exxaro has to destroy a perfectly intact environment with the promise of rehabilitating it when they are done mining. They don't know whether they can return the land to it's original condition as they have no mining project which has been closed and fully rehabilitated.

 

90 permanent jobs to be created by destroying thousands of hectares of vegetation. Is that a fair sacrifice to make? How many jobs will be lost in tourism and agriculture?

 

To me it looked like a balanced report with both the For and Against being given a fair airing. I found myself questioning the fit between mountain biking, which requires an intact natural environment and a mining company which needs to destroy such an evironment in order to make a profit for its shareholders.

[ebenvn]

I am in mining and even though land gets disturbed, it is possible to rehab the areas with great success.

 

People are quick to show fingers at coal mining companies for disturbing nature, but when Eskom goes down because of a lack of coal, its a different picture.

 

It basically comes down to responsible mining and most big mining companies have a very good rehab & community program in place. And development programmes (ex The Exxaro MTB academy).