The Right to Say No: Defending Our Lands and Livelihoods

Leader of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), Nonhle Mbuthuma, share’s her farming community’s struggle to defend their ancestral land from Mineral’s Resources Limited, (MRC) an Australian mining company with British investment. The people of Xolobeni town, on the Wild Coast of South Africa, fought for many years against the proposed gold mine and finally succeeded with their “Right to Say No” campaign in 2016. The proposed mine would have destroyed a 22km area of the Amadiba people’s riparian and coastal lands, polluting the waters upon which the community depends for their food and livelihoods.

The ACC wrote petitions, protested and created blockades along the coastline but the resistance was met with deadly violence when the previous chairman, Sikosiphi ”Bazooka’ Rhadebe, was murdered. Stepping up to lead her community, Nonhle, continually risked her life to keep the mining companies out but while they defeated MRC the threat never goes away. Now the South African government are looking to push through new mining contracts, without consultation, to help with its new Covid economic regeneration plan.  

An incredible land defender, Nonhle, is now at the forefront of a campaign uniting communities across Southern Africa to assert their Right to Say No to unwanted mining. She will be interviewed by Colombian activist, Mariana Gomez Soto, who works with communities in similar situations in the Amazon. 

Speaker:
Nonhle Mbutha

Chair:
Mariana Gómez Soto

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