The recent years-long drought may have tipped parts of the Northern Cape towards an irreversible dust bowl, following decades of heavy grazing and mining. Farmers are holding the line against a surge in new mining prospectors, but are overwhelmed by the volume, and are challenging the state's ability to manage the region's development as the climate emergency escalates.

Listen to this article 14 min Listen to this article 14 min This is the second of a three-part Karoo Dust Bowl series which considers recent desertification trends in the Northern Cape, the causes, and the likely consequences to conservation and livelihoods.

Read Part one here.

If the appeal documents against the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy's granting of a prospecting licence on a nearly 45,000ha area of land just south of Springbok in the Northern Cape is anything to go by, the department's left hand doesn't know what its right hand is doing.

The farmers don't take issue with cosmetic problems with the licensing application by Amonation Mining, such as that the consulting company that drew up the basic assessment report spelled the mining company's name incorrectly -- Amonstion Pty Ltd -- 14 times throughout the 123-page document, or what this says about attention to detail.

Their main objection is that the assessment fails to mention that nearly a quarter of the site earmarked for prospecting falls in the Vaalputs nuclear waste disposal site, where the Koeberg power station's low-level radioactive waste has been buried for nearly 40 years. Some 350ha of the facility hold buried...