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#MineAlert - mapping South Africa’s extractive projects

Andiswa Matikinca

Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism

5 November 2021

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#MineAlert

a project of Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism created in 2015

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#MineAlert

  • A digital platform that combines data journalism & investigative reporting with a geo-journalism tool that maps South Africa’s mining licence applications as well operational mines across SA. The platform also maps water use licence applications, approved water use licences related to mining activities and water threats in strategic water source areas caused by mining.
  • The platform also features documents and resources related to these licence applications and granted licences.
  • We use the data that feeds into these maps to create data-driven investigations.
  • The data that feeds into this map will usually be in a csv spreadsheet

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Where do we get the data?

  • Submitting requests to government bodies as well as private bodies through access to information laws (PAIA in South Africa)
  • Scraping through government websites for uploaded data
  • Requesting data from civil society organisations
  • Using data shared by trusted users/sources

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Is coal really on its way out in South Africa?

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  • Data analysed for the investigation revealed that despite multiple issues in the coal mining sector, the country was recording a large number of new coal mining projects
  • Most of these were concentrated in the Mpumalanga province which is is already heavily polluted due to mining and coal power stations
  • Data received from a mining supplies consulting company

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Deep Trouble: research shows coal is still king

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  • Revealed that there are 432 new coal mines, with a proposed capacity of 1 mtpa or greater currently planned across the world.
  • South Africa is currently ranked 7th globally when it comes to coal production as well as consumption.
  • South Africa has 30 proposed coal mines out of the 432.
  • Over 60% of these would be for our coal-powered plants/stations

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Tips and tools

  • Source data relating to a topic you want to explore
  • Clean up and collate the data so that it is readable
  • Analyse the data to find the story
  • Verify the data to make sure that it is factual
  • Apply the analysis to your story
  • Data analysis - Pivot tables (Google Sheets/Microsoft Excel)
  • Data visualisation - https://flourish.studio/

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THANK YOU!

@oxpeckers

@OxCIEJ

@Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism

@Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism