Protecting the Sperrgebiet

Augetto Graig

The historically forbidden Sperrgebiet is in the Tsau //Khaeb National Park in the far south west of Namibia, where the ancient Namib Desert meets the mighty Atlantic Ocean. This beautiful and desolate place is home to a fragile and intricate ecosystem spared from the ravages of man for centuries - until diamonds were found.

Ironically, diamonds also led to restrictions which kept people out of most of the land, but not where the mining takes place. Those mines belong to Namdeb, the partnership between the Namibian government and world diamond giant De Beers, which takes its custodianship of this precious environment seriously.

According to Liezl Maritz, Namdeb’s senior environmental officer for the southern coastal mines where accretion and beach nourishment is used to literally extend beaches and push back the ocean for land to mine, Namdeb complies to all environmental legislation throughout its extensive operations.

Recently, the organisation submitted an amended environmental clearance certificate application to renew its authorisation for extensive landscaping in the ML33 mining license area, which expired in February.

“Future accretion is included in the scope amendment currently under review at the ministry of environment, fisheries and tourism for the next thre years,” she said.

“All our legal permits are valid and everything is tracked. We don’t just get things on a platter. Our water subtraction permit is only renewed after the department of water comes for site visits. We are International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14001/2015 certified and third parties do yearly ISO auditing,” she added.

Being part of the park, the final landuse plan after mining and rehabilitation is mining-based tourism, she explained. That is why Namdeb developments are all west of the East Cliff Road, limiting the disturbed area and maintaining the virgin status of the desert on the other side.

“We have our rehabilitation plan and just published our environmental management programme report. We have done marine monitoring every year for the last 28 years, so we have a large data-set,” she said.

“Samples are collected and analysed, reports are generated and peer-reviewed by the mining teams. Benthic sampling surveys are conducted to monitor the affected benthic environment as per the environmental management plan requirements.”

Benthic refers to the ecology at the lowest level of the ocean, which is indicative of the health of the environment in this protected marine area.

Namibia's marine protected area stretches 400km from Meob Bay to Chameis Bay, covering a strip from the coast to approximately 30km offshore and including the guano islands and rocky islets. Beach organisms in the sea and on the ground are monitored along with other local animals like rock lobster, she explained.

“The company implemented an impact and recovery monitoring programme for benthic macro-fauna and rock lobster, during and after mining. This programme monitors and demonstrates natural recovery of the seabed through pre-and post-mining benthic faunal and seabed surveys.”

With her team, Maritz also oversees geophysical surveys for habitat terrain mapping and tracks natural sediment movement to compare to mining-induced sediment movement and the impacts on rock lobster habitats, she said. She facilitates bi-annual reviews by the Marine Scientific Advisory Committee.

“This is an independent scientific body that provides guidance and assurance on the Namdeb marine monitoring programmes,” she said. “Findings from the benthic sampling, coastal and marine monitoring and geophysical surveys are discussed and advised on by this committee.”

A study on the ecological role of mining ponds in the southern coastal mines of Namibia is being conducted, she added. “The mining ponds are an equivelant to natural closed estuaries and also have the potential for fish nurseries, as they have characteristics that are beneficial for juveniles, such as high temperatures and refuge from predators, which may increase growth rates and survival respectively. We are also looking at how the fry get into the ponds and at the establishment of saltmarshes that are stepping stones for waterbird habitats. Such habitats are largely absent because of the arid nature of the environments. The ponds could create habitats for 70% of our seabirds. These ponds provide an attractive alternative habitat for water birds to roost, forage or breed, particularly because of their consistent water levels, which makes them regular and predictable habitats most of the time,” she said.

“There may even be opportunites for mariculture. For example, oysters grow well in our ponds. It’s all ongoing research; there are a lot of unanswered questions.”

Biodiveristy conservation is promoted through bird monitoring, wildlife studies and quarterly wildlife counts to determine wildlife activity inside the southern coast mines area. The team is also doing a baseline study on brown hyena densities and distribution within the licence areas, she said.

“The brown hyenas have reclaimed Bogenfels - which Namdeb closed and rehabilitated in 2011 - and it has naturally revegitated. We have nature on our side,” Maritz said.

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