Just as the Tweelopiespruit took its dying breaths, Garfield Krige scooped up the contaminated stream’s last surviving fish and took them home with him to his fish pond in the nearby Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site. “I don’t think they’re unique in any way,” explains Krige, a hydrologist, of the hardy tilapia population that […]
Rising water, rising fear: SA’s mining legacy
Environmental activist Mariette Liefferink’s four-inch crimson heels still sport their Woolworths sticker as they puncture the sulphuric crust lining Robinson Lake, situated in the Western Basin of the Witwatersrand. The water is quiet, smells slightly of vinegar and laps gently against a shore devoid of any life save for a few, lone reeds. Behind the […]