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A request for investigation submitted by ActionAid South Africa to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, detailing how expansive coal mining and exploration in the Mpumalanga region of South Africa disproportionately violate the human rights of women and girls.

This case study by the Center for International Environmental Law examines how coal mining in South Africa's Mpumalanga province threatens access to clean water and food, disproportionately impacting women. It highlights the gap between protective legal frameworks and the reality of corporate impunity and government failure to enforce environmental laws.

The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) submitted these written submissions to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in August 2016. The document outlines systemic failures in the environmental governance of the South African mining sector, detailing how poor monitoring, inadequate enforcement, and flawed impact assessment processes lead to the violation of environmental rights in mining-affected communities. It provides evidence of water pollution, ecosystem destruction, and severe health impacts, while recommending a transfer of regulatory authority from the Department of Mineral Resources to environmental authorities.

This case study describes a legal challenge by the Mpumalanga Lakes District Protection Group (MLDPG) and landowners against a coal prospecting right granted to Khulile Mines on Farm Witkranz 53 IT in Mpumalanga. The appeal centers on inadequate stakeholder consultation, the ignoring of biodiversity designations by the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA), and the submission of an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) containing materially false information regarding the area's topography and ecology.