AFP

To those who live here, it’s like a little piece of heaven, boasting pink flamingos, white beaches and blue ocean waters.

Yet this stretch of South Africa’s west coast has also become a battleground, pitching mining firms against environmentalists fearful that one of nature’s last wild treasures is being bulldozed away.

Diamonds, zircon and other minerals have long been extracted in the sandy coastline near the Olifants river, which flows into the Atlantic about 300 kilometres (180 miles) north of Cape Town. 

But plans to expand the mining have angered surfers, animal lovers and residents in this remote, sparsely populated region — and they are pushing back with lawsuits and petitions. 

“It’s one of the last frontiers of the South African coastline where you can go and sort of lose yourself,” said surfer Mike Schlebach, 45, co-founder of a green campaign group, Protect the West Coast.

Mining companies say they bring much-needed jobs to the area and insist they abide by environmental rules. 

But locals contend the excavation, in which sand is extracted from beaches and the seabed and sifted for valuable minerals, is scaring off fish and tourists alike — and shrinking rather than broadening employment opportunities.

“If we are going to have sea mining, beach mining, land mining… where is the public going to have access to the coast?” questioned Suzanne Du Plessis, 61, a local resident and campaigner. 

– Dolphins, seals and excavators – 

From off-shore diamond prospecting to the construction of a new harbour, several projects threaten to scar the area, a biodiversity hotspot home to dolphins, seals and succulent plants, according to Protect the West Coast. 

Campaigners secured a small victory in June, when the operator of a mineral sand mine that had gained government approval to expand its activities to 10 more beaches, committed to additional environmental checks. 

This came on the back of a lawsuit brought by the Centre of Environment Rights (CER), another environmental group, that was settled out of court by the mine operator, Australian-owned Minerals Commodities. 

But activists remain wary. 

“CER is entitled to go back to court should the mine not comply with the provisions of the agreement,” said CER’s lawyer Zahra Omar.

The mine has already asked for more time to put together its biodiversity management plan, she said.

Minerals Commodities legal counsel Fletcher Hancock said the company was committed to conducting its operations “in an environmentally sustainable and responsible way.”

Activists and locals feel the government has left them to fend for themselves. 

Two government ministries in charge of mineral resources and environmental affairs did not respond to requests for comment. 

– Smaller catch –

In Doringbaai, a small town a few kilometres south of the Olifants estuary, a once-pristine beach where people used to walk their dogs and enjoy the sunset to the sound of crashing waves is now being torn up by heavy machinery.

Resident Peter Owies, 54, said locals were blindsided when mining started earlier this year.

“It was quite a surprise and shock to us,” he said. 

A meeting requested by the community to discuss the mining plans was never held, with the required consultation happening only online, said Du Plessis, the campaigner. 

Preston Goliath, a 46-year-old fisherman, said his catch had dwindled after the mining work began and the same is true for dozens of others. 

“Because they were pumping for diamonds… the fish moved away and our richest (fisheries) bank is now empty,” said Goliath.

Some residents want the beach mining to stop.

But mine owner Trans Hex said all its environmental papers are in order, adding it has held mining rights for the area since 1991.

With dozens more mining permits waiting for approval, Schlebach of Protect the West Coast said he hoped the government would rethink its strategy for the region.

“There’s a whole array of new industries that could have a profoundly positive effect on the people that live on that coastline like algae farming,” Schlebach said. 

“We’ve got to show them that there’s a much better way.

Activists here are optimistic, emboldened by victories scored elsewhere by environmentalists.

On September 1, activists claimed victory in a court case against energy giant Shell — despite the government’s support of the company — resulting in the ban of seismic exploration off the touristic Indian Ocean coast.

After losing four relatives to respiratory illness, Zeina Matar fled her hometown north of Lebanon’s capital where she says a decaying power plant generates little electricity but very deadly pollution.

Thick black smoke sometimes billows from its red-and-white chimneys, leaving a grey haze in the air above the Zouk Mikael industrial district where the toxins remain trapped by a nearby mountain chain.

Zeina, aged 40, says she lost her younger sister and a cousin to pulmonary fibrosis and that two of her uncles died of lung cancer years earlier.

They all lived near the plant where, experts and residents believe, air pollution means people are more likely to develop cancer and respiratory disease than anywhere else in the crisis-torn country.

“We could die tomorrow,” said Zeina, who has relocated to Lebanon’s south to escape the plant’s emissions.

A Greenpeace study found that the surrounding Jounieh area ranked fifth in the Arab world and 23rd globally for cities most contaminated by nitrogen dioxide, a dangerous pollutant released when fuel is burnt.

The environmental group’s 2018 study singled out the Zouk plant, built in the 1940s, as well as cars on a busy motorway and privately owned electricity generators as the main causes of pollution.

The walls of Zeina’s balconies in her old Zouk Mikael home are blackened by the smoke, and laundry she used to hang outside would be damaged by toxic chemicals emanating from the plant, she said. 

“Whenever they refill the station with fuel oil, we would close the windows,” Zeina said. “The smell is unbearable.”

– Doctor says ‘I fled’ –

Lebanon’s economy has been in free-fall since a financial crisis hit late in 2019, with authorities now barely able to afford more than an hour of mains electricity a day.

The Zouk Mikael plant, one of the country’s largest, now runs at minimum capacity when it operates at all, but still its emissions are causing high rates of pulmonary disease, experts warn.

Among them is Paul Makhlouf, a lung doctor at the Notre Dame du Liban Hospital in Jounieh, who said he abandoned his local apartment after noticing a rise in respiratory disease among patients. 

In 2014, he found that lung ailments had increased by three percent in patients living near the plant compared to the previous year, an annual rise he estimates has now doubled.

“When I saw the results, I moved from there,” he said. “I fled.”

Makhlouf mainly blames the type of fuel burnt at the Zouk Mikael plant, which he says is rich in sulphide and nitric oxide — carcinogenic chemicals that affect the respiratory system and the skin.

Compounding the problem, he said, is the fact the seaside plant is located at a low altitude, with heavy smoke trapped in the densely-populated area by nearby mountains that overlook the Mediterranean.

– ‘Under black cloud’ –

Pictures went viral online last month of thick black smoke again billowing from the Zouk plant as it burnt low-quality fuel oil to produce just one hour of power that day.

The energy ministry said the plant had been forced to use heavy fuel to “keep supplying the airport, hospitals and other vital institutions” with electricity.

Since then, the plant has mostly operated at night.

“Sometimes, we wake up to a loud noise in the middle of the night” when the station kicks into action and burns fuel oil, said Zeina’s 80-year-old aunt Samia, who still lives near the plant. 

Elie Beaino, who heads the Zouk municipality, said a second plant, built without authorisation in 2014, runs somewhat more cleanly on higher-quality fuel or gas, but that it has stopped working as its operators cannot afford those higher-quality hydrocarbons.

“Most residents want the power plants to close down,” he said.

Lawmaker Najat Saliba, an atmospheric chemist, said residents near Zouk are at least seven times more likely to develop cancer than those of Beirut, citing a 2018 study she helped author for the American University of Beirut. 

She said the heavy fuel oil it uses releases harmful chemicals. “The solution is to import quality fuel oil and gas,” she said, adding however that Lebanon cannot afford those fuels.

“We have two options today,” she said. “To switch the lights off at the airport and in hospitals, or to sit under a black cloud in Zouk.”

A full-sized model of Noah’s Ark sitting in rural Kentucky promotes a worldview that draws visitors from across the United States — that the theory of evolution is false.

The Ark Encounter and the associated Creation Museum espouse the belief that God literally created the Earth in six days around 4,000 BC.

Evangelical Christians flock to see the spectacular staging and sharp denunciations of scientific facts such as that dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago.

Visitors also reflect America’s divided politics as the country heads into midterm elections, with creationists often aligned with the Republican Party on issues such as abortion and gay rights.

“Dinosaurs are often used by evolutionists to proclaim their worldview. So we’ve taken the dinosaurs back, if you will,” said Mark Looy, cofounder of the ark amusement park and the museum.

Standing a few steps from a model of an allosaurus skeleton, Looy said the site offers a different view of dinosaurs — that “most of them perished during the flood about 4,500 years ago.”

The museum opened in 2007 in Petersburg, Kentucky, financed by a donation campaign and supported by Answers in Genesis, a group that believes in strict creationism.

The Ark Encounter opened in 2016 about 70 kilometers (45 miles) away in Williamstown, and contains a replica of Noah’s Ark in keeping with its supposed Biblical measurements — 150 meters (510 feet) long, 15 meters (51 feet) high, and 25 meters (85 feet) wide.

– Bible ‘more than a story’ –

A combo ticket to the two sites costs $85, and Looys says more than a million people a year browse the exhibits — and also enjoy attractions such as zip-lining and a petting zoo 

Most visitors are committed to the cause.

“My husband and I… believe the Earth is about 6,000 years old,” said Suzanne Swindle, a 37-year-old executive from Atlanta who came to show her four-year-old daughter that the Bible “is more than just a story.”

However, she does not deny that species “adapt to their environment,” one of the pillars of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Similarly, Mike Barrington, a 70-year-old former veteran who lives in Louisiana, calls himself a creationist, but he adds that the exhibit’s explanation of dinosaurs “is new to me.”

Such contradictions are mirrored in the polls. According to a 2019 Gallup survey, 40 percent of Americans believe God created man less than 10,000 years ago.

But other polls ask subtler questions with more options and find about 15 percent reject the theory of evolution, said Adam Laats, a historian at Binghamton University in New York and author of the book “Creationism USA.”

Calling oneself a creationist in the United States is more “an identifying mark of a much broader cultural divide,” he said.

“Someone would go and say, ‘Oh, I guess I’m a creationist because I don’t like pornography, I don’t want abortion rights, and I don’t want LGBTQ rights.'”

Laats said decades of conflict over which institutions in the United States are trustworthy — ranging from justice and politics to science and the media — has created “radically different ideas about truth and reality.”

– Election issues –

The themes are at the heart of key midterm elections on November 8 and Laats sees “a correlation between the most archetypal MAGA (Donald Trump) conservatives and the most ardent museum-type creationists.”

At the two sites, “you’d find mostly Republicans,” Mark Looy said, and while the attractions must stay away from endorsing candidates, “we don’t shy away from some of the hot button issues of the day.”

In one clear example, a dummy video game at the museum reflects a binary reading of the world.

Two camps confront each other: “Man’s world,” associated with “abortion” or “gay marriage,” versus “God’s word,” synonymous with “marriage” and “sanctity of life.”

The mix of religion, activism and entertainment is also evident at the museum’s Garden of Eden.

After strolling through a bucolic landscape with Adam and Eve, visitors arrive in a screening room with projected black and white photos of the Holocaust, drug addicts and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. 

To reinforce the message, big letters spell out: “Rejection of God’s word led to corruption.”

Peggy Mast, a 74-year-old woman from Kansas, agrees.

For her, “chaos reigns” in America, where “people are now committing anarchy with the acceptance of the administration of our government.”

So the museum is “a wonderful place to reaffirm the very things that we know about God,” she added.