{"id":60140,"date":"2026-03-17T14:25:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T14:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/?p=60140"},"modified":"2026-04-02T10:55:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T10:55:57","slug":"fields-of-gold-part-1-community-voices-on-extractive-economies-from-the-richtersveld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/blog\/60140\/fields-of-gold-part-1-community-voices-on-extractive-economies-from-the-richtersveld\/","title":{"rendered":"Fields of gold PART 1: Community voices on extractive economies from the Richtersveld"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A note on this story series: Political leaders and big business often push the narrative that oil and gas extraction is a development imperative. Travelling between Cape Town and Port Nolloth by bus, minibus taxi and foot, Greenpeace Africa volunteer Milan Burnett and photographer Tom van der Schijff spent 10 days on the West Coast of South Africa, home to many oil, gas and other mining projects, to gather perspectives from coastal communities on this narrative. A huge thank you to Masifundise Development Trust and Protect the West Coast for their help. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Fishing and Diamond Mining vessels line the shore of Port Nolloth (Tom van der Schijff\/Greenpeace Africa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

There is a storm brewing on the West Coast of South Africa. This coastline is well accustomed to storms; powerful groundswells brew in the South-West Atlantic and travel thousands of kilometers to reach these shores. For several thousand years South Africa\u2019s indigenous people built lives and cultures on this coast. But today a different storm brews, one that is brewed in boardrooms at the world\u2019s stock exchanges and centres of political power. It is the storm of oil and gas. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cWhere there is oil and gas there is war,\u201d says Joe (32), founder of Environmental Traits, a youth group from Port Nolloth. Joe is not his real name; he speaks to us using a pseudonym because he fears reprisals for his activism. \u201cWhat happens in Africa, look at the Ogoni region in Nigeria, you see that the people suffer a lot, the locals. They suffer through two components; through the Government of the land and the corporations that come to extract the resources of the land, and when the people stand up against those giants, sometimes they get lost, they never get heard from, or seen again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
\"\"
Joe (top image) walks to the Port Nolloth community garden (bottom image). In only one year, Joe and the youth based organisation Environmental Traits he co-founded established the Port Nolloth community garden. See Deborah Dewee\u2019s similar project in Part 2 of this series (Tom van der Schijff\/Greenpeace Africa)
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Here, Joe is referring to the activists allegedly murdered with the involvement of Royal Dutch Shell<\/a> in the Niger River Delta in the 1990s. \u201cSo, all I can say is that where there is oil and gas there is war, and if oil and gas comes to our coastline, we know we will get the same war on our coastline. There\u2019s a good example not far from us, in Mozambique, in Cabo Delgado. But do you see the tensions that oil and gas bring? So for all the income they say will be created in South Africa, will actually go to France, or the Netherlands\u201d says Joe. Joe\u2019s comments on Cabo Delgado are referencing TotalEnergies\u2019 involvement in alleged war crimes<\/a> in Mozambique. Both TotalEnergies and Shell have oil and gas exploration rights near Port Nolloth. Andries Joseph (60), a former mineworker turned activist living in Port Nolloth, agrees with Joe: \u201cThey take your resources away, but nothing comes back for the community. All the minerals fly away.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
The United Nations says that Shell’s oil spills in Nigeria could take 30 years to cleanup. From Ben Awunma\u2019s blog for Greenpeace \u2018The price of oil: Shell in the Niger Delta\u2019 <\/em>(George Osodi\/Greenpeace)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Joe\u2019s voice echoes those from the Niger River Delta: \u201cAfter 30 years of oil exploration, we still see our people suffering, our children dying day in and day out,\u201d says Grace Ekanum<\/a>, leader of a women’s movement in Eket, Nigeria. Ekanum\u2019s comments are not hyperbolic; at least 240 000 barrels of crude oil are spilled<\/a> in the Delta annually, meaning that soil and water are soaked with oil<\/a>, reducing food security and meaning that newborns in this region are twice as likely to die<\/a> during the first year of their life. <\/p>\n\n

The synergy between Ekanum\u2019s and Joe\u2019s perspectives is striking: \u201cSo tomorrow they come to buy our leaders, so that our leaders can take away the power from our people,\u201d says Joe. \u201cUltimately, they are just coming to enslave our people again and take the money away like they did before,\u201d says Walter Steenkamp (52), a 4th generation fisherman from Port Nolloth and chairperson of Aukotowa Fisheries Cooperative in Port Nolloth. <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Disused oil tanks lie abandoned in Port Nolloth (Tom van der Schijff\/Greenpeace Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The history Steenkamp mentions contextualises the community\u2019s current struggle with the area\u2019s history of corporate extractivism. South Africa\u2019s long history of mining is intertwined with its history of exploitation; the massive mineral wealth that sustained the Apartheid State <\/a>simultaneously created huge wealth inequalities<\/a> from resource extraction. Joseph, Steenkamp, and many others in this community believe that the current oil and gas exploration is a continuation of the extractive economies created under colonisation and continued under Apartheid. This area of Southern Africa first witnessed mining on a corporate scale in the early 1800s; letters between British colonial officials show how foreign interest in this area started with copper mining.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Port Nolloth Jetty, showing the loading of copper ore (Source: the Heritage Portal)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Between 1904 and 1907, the German Empire murdered<\/a> 80% of the indigenous Herero and Nama people in what is today Namibia. Many of Port Nolloth\u2019s current residents, like Joseph, are descendents of the Nama and Herero who survived persecution. When diamonds were discovered in the early 1900s, resource extraction shifted predominately from copper towards diamonds; the beaches between Doringbaai and the Namibian border bear the scars of onshore diamond mining. Joseph is among many who believe that the communities of the Richtersveld saw almost none of the huge wealth generated from mining. \u201cThe development is not intended for our people. The mining companies came, they took the diamonds out and put nothing back for the community, especially for the indigenous people,\u201d says Joseph.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Diamond mining infrastructure from the De Beers complex in Port Nolloth (Tom van der Schijff\/Greenpeace Africa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

This trend of exploitation was supposed to stop after 1994; Section 24 of South Africa\u2019s Constitution promises<\/a> to secure \u201cecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.\u201d Similarly, the Mineral Resources Development Act affirms<\/a> the \u201cState\u2019s obligation to protect the environment for the benefit of present and future generations,\u201d while South Africa\u2019s Constitution enshrines the importance of community consultation and participatory democracy.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Residents of Port Nolloth stop for a braai  (Tom van der Schijff\/Greenpeace Africa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

However, around 90%<\/a> of South Africa\u2019s exclusive economic ocean zone is currently leased out for oil and gas production or exploration. Between Cape Town and the Namibian border, most of the onshore mining is for heavy mineral concentrates and diamonds, while most offshore mining is for oil, gas, phosphates and diamonds. The Government\u2019s policy under Operation Phaksia<\/a> is to \u201cunlock the economic potential of South Africa\u2019s oceans,\u201d through oil and gas exploration and marine aquaculture. Since it was launched in 2014, Operation Phakesia has facilitated massive growth in mining applications.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

South Africa\u2019s Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, says that mining is needed<\/a> for economic growth and job creation. But frontline communities have a different perspective. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with oil and gas, I will never go with them. It’s just a way to leave this community, the Nama people, behind and to oppress,\u201d says Joseph. Steenkamp agrees: \u201cThey come to you with words, but actually, nothing happens on the ground.\u201d But Steenkamp says the community is directly affected by the loss of fishing grounds, the resulting decline in the community\u2019s livelihood, and the health impacts from the mines.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Executive committee of Aukotwa Fisheries Cooperative, Walter Steenkamp standing 2nd from right (Tom van der Schijff\/Greenpeace Africa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Steenkamp sees that most of the benefits occur outside of these communities, while communities are promised jobs. \u201cWhat happens in the Richtersveld, contracts are given to big companies from outside and then the big companies come with their workforce, they don\u2019t give jobs to the local people,\u201d he says. Steenkamp explains that promises of job creation never materialise, and that the community has learnt from the area\u2019s history of mining: \u201cI\u2019m not against development, but let the development take place in the right direction, and let the communities get recognised, and don\u2019t do one sided things.\u201d Steenkamp says that the skills needed to gain employment are highly technical, skills not present among the people who need jobs. \u201cWho in our community is educated in that trade? No one. Our people are not trained for that type of work,\u201d says Steenkamp. He continues: \u201cIn my experience my people are just used as slaves on the whole final infrastructure to set up. As soon as they put the gate up, as soon as they finish the construction, there\u2019s no jobs for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Andries Joseph speaks to Greenpeace Africa in his home (Tom van der Schijff\/Greenpeace Africa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Mantashe and mining companies have stressed the need<\/a> for inclusive development to replace past exploitation. However, while billions of rands<\/a> of mineral resources have been extracted from this coastline, Steenkamp says that to anyone visiting Port Nolloth it would be near impossible to make the case that these resources have built an inclusive economy. Available information from local<\/a> and national<\/a> governments shows that despite the area\u2019s resource endowments, unemployment and poverty are high. Joseph adds: \u201cThere will not be a difference, if I look back at the mining companies, what happened [in the past]. More promises, and the same will happen, empty promises. They come with juicy stories, they come with sweet stories, sappy stories, but if you read the fine print, then you see it’s my biggest mistake I have done here. Before I make that mistake, it will never happen. My answer is no, for oil and gas, no.\u201d Resultantly, many in this community believe that they have been abandoned by the Government; mine workers, fishers and community members interviewed by Greenpeace Africa expressed deep discontent with the political system, believing that the promise of democracy and equitable development was nothing but a lie. This is why \u201cwe want a bottom up [development] approach,\u201d says Steenkamp. <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Hendrik Louw, who has fished in Port Nolloth his whole life, outside his home (Tom van der Schijff\/Greenpeace Africa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Joseph agrees that those making decisions are completely unaware of the conditions on the ground: \u201cHere live communities, this is not a desert, here lives many communities that stay here on the coastline.\u201d For Steenkamp, for whom the ocean is life, this is what the current paradigm of resource extraction threatens: \u201cMy father was a 3rd generation fisherman, so it is hereditary blood that is inside of [me]. I have my mother and my father\u2019s talent, my mother did the same work I am doing, she was also a chairperson of a women\u2019s group. As communities we want, through the years, a sustainable life and sustainable work, that\u2019s where we want to go.\u201d The political disjuncture between local perspectives on the economy and national decision making, for Steenkamp, Joseph, and many others in this area, ignores the voices of the people and the socio-economic interconnectedness of the people with the land and the sea. Steenkamp says that the impacts of this disjuncture leaves little for small-scale fisherspeople who rely on the sea to live. More on this from the community of Doringbaai in part 2 of this series. <\/p>\n\n

Joe\u2019s comparison of the West Coast with other parts of Africa makes this point clear; Governments and leaders must hear the voices of the people and build an alternative to the extractive fossil fuel economy that is making an inclusive economy unattainable. The violent history of the fossil fuel industry in Africa could foreshadow its future on the West Coast, unless these voices are heeded. <\/p>\n\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

PART 2<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fields of gold PART 2: Community voices on extractive economies from Doringbaai<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
READ HERE<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

PART 3<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fields of gold PART 3: Voices on extractive economies from Ebenhaeser and Hondeklipbaai<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
READ HERE<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a storm brewing on the West Coast of South Africa. This coastline is well accustomed to storms; powerful groundswells brew in the South-West Atlantic and travel thousands of kilometers to reach these shores. For several thousand years South Africa\u2019s indigenous people built lives and cultures on this coast. But today a different storm brews, one that is brewed in boardrooms at the world\u2019s stock exchanges and centres of political power. It is the storm of oil and gas. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":60164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[46,65],"p4-page-type":[126],"class_list":["post-60140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-protecttheenvironment","tag-greenpeaceafrica","tag-southafrica","p4-page-type-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60140"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60406,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60140\/revisions\/60406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60140"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=60140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}