Conservancy puts foot down

Members of the Iipumbu yaTshilongo Conservancy claim that the Uukwambi Traditional Authority and the governor of Oshana, Clemens Kashuupulwa, are violating the conservation laws to which they are signatories.This follows the push by the two to mine salt at the Otjivalunda salt pan, which forms part of the conservancy. The conservancy is also a tourism concession area in partnership with the ministry of environment and tourism.According to the spokesperson of the conservancy, Thomas Nambambi, Kashuupulwa as regional governor, and the Uukwambi Traditional Authority under which the salt pan falls, undertook to protect the area when they signed the conservancy's constitution.Nambambi said the conservancy was gazetted in May 2012, long before the Uukwambi and Ondonga traditional authorities acquired exclusive prospecting licence (EPL) 4365 through their Ondonga-Uukwambi Mining Enterprises (Pty) Ltd, also known as OUME, which is a co-shareholder with Gecko Namibia (Pty) Ltd, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Gecko Otjivalunda Holdings (Pty) Ltd, to mine salt at Otjivalunda.Nambambi said OUME is a private entity and does not represent community members. Once it is granted an environmental clearance certificate, the salt pan will not benefit the community anymore. He added that during meetings with Gecko they were informed that the company's real interest is the trona deposits in the salt pan.“What the Uukwambi authority is trying to do, which is being defended by Kashuupulwa, is a violation of conservation laws and a betrayal of the people. “It is clearly indicated in the law that the authority's role is to protect the conservancy by not allocating land within it without informing the conservancy committee,” Nambambi said.“Our research has established that once the trona has been removed from the two salt pans, the pans will have no salt for at least the next 25 years. This defeats the principle of sustainable development.”Nambambi also indicated that the proposed salt mine would only create about 30 jobs while the conservancy benefits more than 4 000 people on a sustainable basis. Salt is one of its most valuable resources and cannot be replaced with a mining concession.The community has created the Iipumbu yaTshilongo Conservancy and Ekango subcommittee to prevent any mining in the pans.He also indicated that since they started opposing mining at Otjivalunda during September 2012, the Uukwambi authority representatives started boycotting the conservancy meetings and were still doing so.“As a conservancy and affected group, we were not properly consulted in this matter from the outset. There is no way we will give away our precious resources that we have vowed to protect through our constitution,” he said.Last week, Gecko Namibia's managing director, Pine van Wyk, said that his company and OUME, assisted by Enviro Dynamics, had conducted a comprehensive environmental impact assessment (EIA) during 2013 in relation to the proposed salt mining operations and the construction of a production plant at the Otjivalunda salt pans. The EIA was submitted to the environment ministry on 6 December 2013 for environmental clearance, which the environmental commissioner formally declined on 25 July 2014.He added that Gecko Namibia appealed against the decision on 7 August 2014 and was still waiting for the outcome.Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Gecko Otjivalunda Holdings (Pty) Ltd, it holds 50% of the ordinary issued shares of Ondonga-Uukwambi Mining Enterprises (Pty) Ltd (OUME), which is the holder of exclusive prospecting licence (EPL) 4365, which covers 20 650 hectares. The remaining 50% of the issued shares of OUME are equally held by the Ondonga Community Trust Fund and the Uukwambi Community Trust Fund.Kashuupulwa said he was not consulted when the application for the clearance certificate was done, although he was the most senior government official in the region.Otjivalunda has two salt pans, Otjivalunda 1 in Otamanzi constituency of Omusati Region and Otjiwarunda 2 in Uuvudhiya constituency Oshana Region and they reside under the Uukwambi authority.The Ondonga Traditional Authority does not form part of the conservancy or the pans, but falls within the mining block. ILENI NANDJATO

Conservancy puts foot down

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Namibian Sun 2025-06-19

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Conservancy puts foot down

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Namibian Sun 2025-06-19

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