Fikile Ntshangase

Fikile Ntshangase (born c. 1957) was a South African environmental activist who was assassinated on 22 October 2020. She was a leading member of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO), which is taking legal action against the proposed expansion of an open-cast coal mine operated by Tendele Coal Mining (Pty) Ltd, near Somkhele, situated near Hluhluwe–iMfolozi park, the oldest nature reserve in Africa.

Environmental activism

Environmental work Ntshangase was a Vice-Chairperson of a sub-committee of the MCEJO. The organisation previously challenged mining expansion in Mthethwa through Environmental Impact Assessment processes. MCEJO receives support from Earthlife Africa, groundWork, ActionAid South Africa, and WoMin.

Mpukunyoni Community MCEJO became involved in challenging the Somkhele mine on the request of residents in the Mpukunyoni community. Tendele Coal Mining had been granted additional rights in the area and expansion of the mine would reach near the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve. The Mpukunyoni community has traditionally depended on herding and agriculture, but the Somkhele Coal Mine and the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi game park are currently the biggest employers of the community. Cultural concerns were also lodged as ancestral graves where exhumed and moved elsewhere without proper identification.

Ntshangase was part of a legal dispute that opposed the expansion of the Somkhele mine. With the assistance of attorneys for climate change and environmental justice from the non-profit environmental law clinic ALL RISE, MCEJO instituted legal action against Tendele Coal Mining to cease its activity in the Somkhele mine until it had amended its environmental management plan and obtained relevant permits for waste management and the removal of protected plants in the area. The Pietermaritzburg High Court held that Tendele was not required to have environmental authorisation for its mining rights. When the case was appealed, the Supreme Court of Appeals dismissed the case on the basis that MCEJO and ALL RISE were not specifying the specific activities undertaken by Tendele that required environmental authorisation. Ntshangase had reportedly declined to sign an agreement and refused the company's bribe. She reportedly said, “I refused to sign. I cannot sell out my people. And if need be, I will die for my people.” These deaths relate to environmental activists’ challenges to fossil fuel industries, as well as to local community divisions around how environmental advocacy can impact their livelihoods in the absence of a just transition. Human Rights Watch wrote a similar letter.