There are about 10,000 miles between Rhosneigr and South Africa’s West Coast, but the connection is very strong for us. Some places you are lucky enough to visit stay with you; South Africa is one of them. A country and coastline that matters deeply to us, and one that has shaped how we think about coastlines, communities, and what it means when wild places come under pressure.
The West Coast of South Africa is a coastline defined by wild beauty with communities whose livelihoods, identities and daily rhythms are shaped entirely by the sea. Unfortunately that coastline is under threat. Not from gradual environmental change, but from the deliberate extraction of what lies beneath it both on land and increasingly beneath the ocean floor.
While our North Wales coastline faces different challenges, the need for urgent action to protect these wild places led us to our new partnership with local environmental NGO Protect the West Coast (PTWC) through 1% for the Planet.
What’s Happening on South Africa’s West Coast
From the Orange River down to Cape Columbine, hundreds of kilometres of South Africa’s West Coast are already being mined or have been earmarked for mining. Diamond extraction and heavy mineral sand mining have reshaped the dunes, beaches, and tidal zones of this stretch of coastline over the past century, and a renewed wave of prospecting and mining applications is now threatening what remains. As we stand in August 2026 there are more than 60 active applications and more are expected.
The consequences reach well beyond the impact on the physical landscape that mineral extraction has. Fishing communities lose access to the waters their families have worked for generations, ecosystems that support biodiversity found nowhere else on earth are disrupted, sometimes permanently, and the people who depend on a healthy coast for their food, income, and culture bear costs that mining companies are never held to account for.
PTWC is a South African organisation doing the difficult, sustained work of fighting back through legal action, media advocacy, and building the kind of public awareness that makes political pressure possible. They work across lots of initiatives with a core focus on transparency, storytelling, and community solidarity.
Out of Mined – Cannes Award Winning Film
The clearest expression of PTWC’s work right now is Out of Mined, a feature-length documentary directed by Arthur Neumeier, which had its world premiere in Cape Town in June 2026 to a packed house of nearly 400 people. The film traces the impacts of mining along 450 km of coastline, giving voice to the people who live with the consequences and are fighting to change them: fishers, indigenous people, scientists, and environmentalists. The film has since entered an international festival circuit and won a Cannes Film Award as well as a Berlin Indie Film Festival Award.
It’s a film worth watching and one of the things we will do through this partnership is bring it to Anglesey to highlight the incredible work PTWC are doing.
The partnership
Our partnership with PTWC is in its early stages, and we want to do it properly rather than rush it so for now we’re focusing on a pilot, an announcement, an in-store awareness period, and a screening of Out of Mined in or around Rhosneigr, with Cafe Notos as the hosting partner.
The screening is the heart of it as we want to create a space where we can showcase the work of PTWC and highlight how others can get involved to help them protect wild spaces in South Africa. We think this is a great place to start with a receptive audience of likeminded people in our community who love the sea and the outdoors, who understand what a coastline means to a community. There will be food and drink, an introduction from us on why we’re supporting PTWC, and the opportunity to learn more, donate, or sign up to PTWC’s updates.
Beyond the Pilot
There’s more we want to explore beyond this starting point, and our plan is to work with Protect the West Coast over the next three years and hopefully beyond to strengthen the impact of the partnership. The framework we’ve been developing with PTWC has some genuinely exciting possibilities from limited-edition menu items to community events to connections with local surf clubs, cold-water swimmers, and coastal conservation groups in Anglesey. Some of that will come together in the new year and into spring and early summer. Like all of our 1% for the Planet partnerships this will be a real partnership with impact and action at its centre.
The idea that a cafe in north Wales can serve as a meaningful touchpoint for a campaign happening on another continent might sound like a stretch. We don’t think it is. Rhosneigr is a place where people come because they love the outdoors and the coastline.
Two coastlines. One shared responsibility.
We’ll share more details on the screening as soon as they’re confirmed.
