Promise her that Mabilo’s child has asthma. She is fighting for cleaner air in Mpumalanga

Promise Mabilo launched the Vukani Environmental Movement, a community-led organization campaigning for a better environment. Photos: Ihsaan Haffejee

An environmental activist from eMpumelelweni township in Emalahleni, Mpumalanga is determined to get the government to improve air quality in the region.
The air quality in the Emalahleni region is among the worst in the world.
Promise Mabilo launched the Vukani Environmental Movement, which campaigns for a better environment.
Mabilo called on the government to have more air monitoring stations and have more mobile clinics to monitor people’s health.

Promise Mabilo has been at the forefront of the fight against poor air quality and pollution in Mpumalanga’s Emalahleni region. Mabilo has lived in the region for over two decades.

But her passion was ignited after she watched her son’s health deteriorate as he developed breathing problems and was eventually diagnosed with asthma in 2008.

“Living in Emalahleni is like living in a sealed bottle. It’s hard to breathe,” she says. “How many other young children face the same challenge as my son? So I started mobilizing people to join the campaign for air quality and health.”

Her advocacy for better air quality led Mabilo to start the Vukani Environmental Movement (VEM), which campaigns for a better environment.

The organisation, based in eMpumelelweni, runs public awareness campaigns on air, water and waste issues affecting the community. He also encouraged youth in the community to start a recycling project and a food garden.

The air quality in the Emalahleni region is among the worst in the world. A Greenpeace commissioner study found that “Kriel in Mpumalanga, with its high concentration of coal-fired power stations, ranks as the world’s second sulfur dioxide hotspot” after Russia’s Norilsk region.

Emalahleni is rich in coal reserves and home to the many power stations that dominate the nearby landscape. Emissions from these power plants are the main contributor to the region’s poor air quality.

The Highveld Priority Area was officially declared a pollution hotspot under the National Air Quality Act by the Minister for the Environment in 2007.

He promises Mabilo at the headquarters of the Vukani Environmental Movement.

Landmark case

In 2019, the Vukani Environmental Movement, together with environmental activists at work on the groundwere represented by the Center for Environmental Rights as they launched a landmark case. The groups took the government, particularly the environment minister, to court in 2019 for failing to make regulations to implement the Highveld Priority Area Air Quality Management Plan. It became known as Deadly air case.

The plaintiffs’ case hinged on Article 24 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being. They won. Judge Colleen Collis pent-up on March 18, 2022, the government’s failure to implement the regulations violated the Constitution. She directed the government to make the necessary regulations to implement the Act.

The Minister of Forests, Fisheries and the Environment appealed. The matter was heard at the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on August 28. Two days before the appeal hearing, the new minister, Dion George, published the necessary regulations. VEM and groundWork are studying these regulations to determine if they are appropriate. Meanwhile, the SCA reserved judgment.

I promise Mabilo working in one of the food gardens that the Vukani Environmental Movement helped to establish in the town of eMpumelelweni.

Long way to go

While Mabilo praised the court’s victory, she says the reality of people living in communities like hers has not changed much.

“We are really far from the results of the trial. We should have seen more air monitoring stations, more training for local people, additional mobile clinics to monitor people’s health. But we are not seeing anything practical,” said Mabilo.

She believes that an informed and educated young generation is essential to creating a different future for the region as the world slowly moves away from coal.

“We need to work hard to create new types of jobs around the city Only Transition and save the lives of the younger generation,” says Mabilo, who acknowledges the complicated nature of the transition in an area where so many people still rely heavily on the coal industry.

The life of an activist is challenging, tiring and sometimes dangerous, but Mabilo says she is motivated to keep fighting for a future where young children can live and breathe in a cleaner environment.

“People accuse us of being anti-development and denying progress, but that is not the truth. The truth is that our children are dying,” says Mabilo.

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