State and Business Collaboration in the Neoliberalisation of Nature: An Analysis of Mining Bids on the Wild Coast, South Africa

Over the past few years, the South African state, in collaboration with a global capital system, has been facilitating the destruction of the natural environment under the false pretext of "development". This is particularly pronounced in the Wild Coast region that stretches from the Eastern Cape to the KwaZulu-Natal Province, where the state has sought to promote mining activities that are harmful to natural systems and are a contravention of the National Environmental Management Act (No. 107 of 1998). While there has been great resistance against the forces of the neoliberalisation of nature that are destructive to the environment, they have been met with suppression on the part of the state and private capital. This study analyses two cases: the proposed mining of titanium in Xolobeni by Australian Mineral Commodities Ltd. and the proposed seismic survey by the Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company, Shell, both of which have the support of the government. The study is conceptual in nature, and underpinned by conflict theory, it demonstrates how the logic behind the commodification of nature is not development but rather profit maximisation at the cost of the environment and the communities who depend on it for subsistence and livelihood generation. The discussions centre on the historical experiences of communities on the Wild Coast who face an existential threat to their way of life, and they will demonstrate how, in the neoliberal mode of development, the environmental and physical space serve as a realm of both physical and symbolic control by the state and capital.