Treasure hunters are flocking to Zim
But the toxic gold rush brings ecological disaster
ARIVER runs through Penhalonga, a rich gold mining area about 18 kilometres north of Zimbabwe’s eastern border city of Mutare. Not so long ago, this waterway used to nourish thousands of local people, livestock, croplands and pastures as it meanders towards its confluence with the river Odzi. But the tributary is now heavily polluted; its waters murky and reddish brown and its bed heavily silted.
The ecological disaster is man made. Penhalonga has been overrun by thousands of illegal miners — men, women and young children — who have come to the region in search of gold.
The prospectors are causing immense damage. They are hacking down acre upon acre of lush vegetation.
They are clogging and redirecting streams with dams and waste materials or “tailings”. And worst of all, they are poisoning water-sources with the neuro-toxin mercury, endangering not only their own lives but the lives of all those who live nearby. The country has a long history of gold mining
Weston Makoni, chairman of the Penhalonga Residents Association, told The Telegraph that the mining threatened to turn the area into a wasteland. “The illegal gold miners are now everywhere,” he said. “They are polluting our water and environment with mercury. Our livestock is also drinking this poisoned water; our crops are irrigated with the poisoned water. And the mercury is finding its way into our food chain.”
Zimbabwe’s crumbing economy, long afflicted by poor management, political conflict and climate change, has pushed millions into taking desperate measures to survive.
It is estimated that some 800 000 are now involved in illegal mining and many will stop at nothing as they hunt for gold. In the country’s south-eastern Chimanimani district, miners are tearing down vast timber plantations and farmlands. While in Kwekwe, in the centre of the country, they are destroying schools, houses, roads and even railway lines.
In many ways it is not surprising — the World Food Programme estimates that nearly three million people in the country do not have enough food — the use of mercury is causing immense damage.
The liquid metal, once famous for driving Victorian English hatters and mirror makers mad, is used the world over by small-scale miners to pinpoint and isolate gold. It is spread in the mud and mixes with flecks of gold to create an amalgam that is then set aside and burned. Gold is left behind, while the mercury vapours are left to leach into the environment.
Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency has warned it has no methods of cleaning up mercury from the environment.
Makoni said children in the area were abandoning school to join the lucrative but dangerous gold rush. He said that on one afternoon in March this year, he saw two young miners brazenly digging for gold just behind a small church in the area.
“The situation is becoming so dire. And we don’t even know what to do,” he said.
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