Mpumalanga is the epicentre of South Africa’s coal mining industry and energy, with 11 of Eskom’s 14 coal power stations and two of South Africa’s biggest coal mines based in the province. Coal mining is responsible for a significant part of the region’s economic output, employment, and the nation’s energy mix. However, no mineral can be mined forever. Coal mines across Mpumalanga are approaching the end of their lifecycles. Combined with the South African government’s intentions to gradually shift away from coal-based energy generation and reduce emissions, the closure of coal mines in Mpumalanga represents both opportunity and crisis.
What Happens at the End of Mining?
A recent report by the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), highlights the importance of mine decommissioning and community impacts as an overall component of just transition planning. Tarisai Mugunyani, the CER’s Programme Head of Mining, argues that Mpumalanga’s coal mines are at the heart of South Africa’s just transition, for both the environment and surrounding communities. “If we are to move away from coal as our primary energy source that supplies our energy grid, what are the obligations from a state perspective? What are the obligations of mining companies as they are moving away from mining coal to the communities that they’re working in?”
The nation has a wide-reaching environmental and mining regulatory landscape. In addition to South Africa’s constitutional environmental right, laws such as the National Environment Management Act (NEMA), the National Water Act and the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) have detailed regulations governing mine closure and rehabilitation. Responsibility for rehabilitation rests with the holder of a mining right, and the MPRDA requires social, economic and environmental management to be addressed both during operation and mine closure. Mining companies are also required to have finance (or “financial provision”) set aside for environmental rehabilitation and closure.
But as Mugunyani points out, gaps in these legal frameworks mean that companies can avoid accountability for mine closure and rehabilitation. For example, mines can be put under maintenance or going into business rescue (a legal process designed to support companies in financial distress). The latter means that companies will not be able to meet the environmental obligations stipulated in their mining rights. “There is no coal mine that is deemed as legally closed in Mpumalanga, but a lot of those coal mines are approaching the end of their life cycles. We need to have conversations on whether adequate financial provision has been set aside to ensure that there is adequate rehabilitation and that actual closure certificates can be issued at the end of that life cycle.”
Financing Mine Rehabilitation
Ensuring that there is adequate finance to fund mine rehabilitation and closure lies at the heart of the challenge. A long outdated 2015 estimate by the Department of Mineral Resources put the cost of mine rehabilitation at approximately R46 billion (US$2.84 billion), a figure that has increased in subsequent years. At the same time keeping these mines operational has its own costs. Last year the South African government approved an extension of the operating dates for 14 coal fired power plants, with two set to continue operations until 2050. These power plants rely on coal mined from nearby areas, mostly in Mpumalanga. A new report by Greenpeace, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, and GroundWork claims that continued delays in the closure of the plants could cause up to 32 000 preventable health related deaths’ between 2026 and 2050, with an estimated associated cost of up to US$38 billion to the economy in lost work days and stress on the healthcare system. Putting off coal mine and coal fired power plant closure does not make the cost of rehabilitation go away, it only increases the overall cost to the economy.
Although legal frameworks such as NEMA and MPRDA put the cost of mine closure and rehabilitation on the mine itself, the State is obliged to step in and cover that cost if and when a mine operator dies, is untraceable, or the company is dissolved. There are approximately 6100 such derelict and abandoned mines in South Africa. But as it stands, the State doesn’t have the financial resources to cover that gap. For Mugunyani, that can create dangerous conditions. “If there isn’t enough financial provision that has been set aside and if mining companies abscond mines, it brings up conversations around informal or illegal mining and what that means to the economy and the safety of communities. We do not want to have the tragedy of Stilfontein that happened in 2024. We had the Wilge River spill in Mpumalanga with the loss of all that biodiversity within that area. Those are the biggest examples of what happens when we do not ensure that we have adequate legislative safeguards to ensure that communities are protected.” Acid mine drainage, the outflow of highly acidic, metal-rich water from abandoned or active mines, is of particular concern: in 2021, the South African government scrapped a R10 billion plan to address acid mine water because of budgetary constraints.
There are promising amendments to regulations that could close legal loopholes and increase the provision of financial resources that mines are required to hold. South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs, Forestry and Fisheries’ 2015 financial provision regulation provides better safeguards around the collection and auditing of finance for rehabilitation and closure, ensuring that it is independently audited. However, those regulations only apply to mining rights granted from 2015 to the present. For older coal mines in Mpumalanga which had rights granted before 2015, the provision does not apply. Attempts to include a section on transitional arrangements on existing mining rights for companies to reassess and update their financial provision have been met with pushback from the industry. “We are calling on the Department to ensure that those regulations come in. It’s a concern for us because for old order mining rights – particularly for coal in the Mpumalanga region – it means that if we are to look at the environmental impacts of mining and the rehabilitation required, the current money that has been set aside might not be sufficient for the purposes of ensuring adequate rehabilitation,” says Mugunyani.
“All of these acts cannot work in isolation. They need to speak to each other as they interact particularly as it comes to mining, to ensure that there are adequate safeguards. There have been delays in terms of how the government has been looking at the legislation, delays that are not explained. Why are things like the National Mine Closure Strategy that was gazetted for public comment in 2021 yet to be gazetted [in final form?”
Putting Communities at the Heart of Mine Rehabilitation
But there is still time to steer the ship around. The inclusion of mining communities within rehabilitation and closure planning is central to the success of a just transition and land rehabilitation post-mining. Community engagement during mine closure and rehabilitation processes ensures that their perspectives are included and concerns addressed at every step of the process. This includes public consultations on land usage after mine rehabilitation, job creation and employment after mine closures. Adequate finance for environmental restoration, health programmes and awareness raising on constitutional rights can help empower and protect the people who are left most vulnerable when mines close.
The lessons from Mpumalanga apply beyond South Africa. It is especially relevant as interest in critical minerals grows as a vehicle for economic growth, in the context of renewed focus on the localisation of mining benefits, and as negotiators explore the contours and nature of support for a just transition in African countries under the Just Transition Work Programme and Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) for a Just Transition.
Mugunyani believes that the relationship between communities and their natural environment deserve special focus: “Outside of the legislative gaps, there’s an importance of ensuring that African States, as they centre mining as the gateway for economic emancipation, that there is consideration of affected communities. The people who should be the immediate beneficiaries of mining should not be negatively impacted from an environmental perspective when mining is happening, and also when it comes to an end.”
