Mining, environmental changes and human security in South Africa

South Africa is home to the world's most abundant reserves of minerals and base metals. As a result, mining is essential to the economy of the country. However, behind the mining-town booms, employment figures, and national revenues via royalties and taxes, spawned by mining is the devastating consequences of the nexus and trade-offs between mining, environmental changes and human security. In a broader historical perspective, institutional and policy level changes that are apparent in how mining and environmental changes are managed are still locked into pathways of state- and business-centric apartheid segregationist laws and policies in South Africa. A significant consequence of the economically driven agenda of the mining industry in the country has profound consequences for human security. Consequently, civil society organisations have responded to the harmful effects of mining and environmental changes through heightened mobilization against the state and mining companies.