Mining Charter Three is already in the throes of strangling the mining industry, which provides virtually half of South Africa’s foreign currency from a quarter of its exports. Without these foreign currency earnings, South Africa’s participation in global trade stands to be decimated. Yet the errant Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) is allowed to persist with this decimation at a time when the governments of other mining jurisdictions are vigorously enabling mining expansion. At this rate, South Africa will miss the next mining upturn in the same way it missed the last one. Going unheeded are warnings of the African National Congress and the National Union of Mineworkers. New York- and Johannesburg-listed Gold Fields is right to state that it will oppose Mining Charter Three “with everything it's got”. The whole of South Africa should be shouting that out from the rooftops.