Arrest freewheeling damage to environment
IN a welcome move Government has launched a nation-wide operation to arrest the galloping damage to the environment and the pollution of the country’s water bodies which has resulted from uncontrolled activities of the small-scale mining sector.
The move, however, comes 40 years too late to repair the damage caused by the sector which is responsible for the critical shortage of labour in the agricultural sector and the sharp and increasing shortage of grazing land for livestock on both farmland and communal land.
The small-scale mining sector — a by-product of short-sighted political planning — has in 40 years become a law unto itself that brooks no control and has become an arena for crime and lawlessness. The sector is responsible for soaring deaths in mining locations where many victims lie buried without any hope for retrieval of their remains.
In the 1980s when the Government launched mining co-operatives to meet an exploding demand for decent employment in a shrinking economy, a young man picked up a gold nugget on the verge of a public school in one city in the Midlands. Before the authorities got wise to what was going on, a hole had been dug up to mine a reef under the school.
That is the allure and power of uncontrolled gold mining which is responsible for massive pollution of dams and other water bodies throughout the country and Government has belatedly moved to bring law and order to the sector which however, comes too late to repair widespread damage to the environment, river systems and dams.
The present move to clean up the sector is a joint operation of the police and the Environmental Management Agency (Ema) whose responsibility covers veld fire control, siltation control, control of all forms of degradation of the environment, desertification control and protection of water sources against chemical pollution, to name just a few examples of the agency’s areas of responsibility.
Against the uncontrollable environmental damage, it is anyone’s guess how much of the gold mined in the smallscale sector is delivered to the national refinery and how much of it is exported to illegal market channels outside the country.
In the regions of Matabeleland where pollution of water bodies and degradation of the environment is highest are the districts of Bubi in Matabeleland North, Matobo, Insiza, Gwanda, Esigodini/ Umzingwane and Beitbridge districts in Matabeleland South. All districts of Matabeleland South where uncontrolled mining is high are also sources of potable water for the City of Bulawayo and the rapidly growing urban centres of Gwanda and Beitbridge.
Untold pollution levels of the affected river systems and dams are anyone’s guess, seriously affecting the quality of potable water which threatens public health. All six districts of Matabeleland where the problem is rampart with massive pollution of dams and siltation of river systems are high, the areas have also seen a worrying surge in competition for space affecting both humans and livestock needs in recent years.
This has extremely negatively affected the socio-economic potential of the people and their districts to produce food for themselves in a region five environment in which the population in the main rely on cattle production for survival. This has resulted from an influx of people and livestock from outside the region without increasing the space to accommodate the sharp population increase affecting these areas.
Social tensions are on the increase which threaten peace and order. There is, therefore, a pressing need for Government to arrest the threat by decongesting the affected districts. Merely arresting the offenders in the small-scale mining sector, coming as this does 40 years later, will not deliver the desired impact. Small-scale mining is a nocturnal occupation when law enforcement agents are not patrolling.
There is therefore a pressing need to decongest the affected districts while at the same time dealing with the evil to be found in the small-scale mining sector whose activities are far-reaching.
The shortcomings of these regions of Matabeleland have a long history which was identified by the colonial authorities who tackled them by establishing communal irrigation farms where the local people produced food to supplement what came from livestock farming in the region in which the average rainfall in a good season does not exceed 600mm in these districts which are prone to perennial drought conditions.
The farms were located along the boundaries of the region with Botswana in the southwest and Chicualacuala in MidLimpopo River east of Beitbridge district. Inland the Government of the day also established communal irrigation farms in Makwe in Gwanda West and Silalatshani in Insiza South, with communal farms at the headwaters of Shashi River in Chief Malaba’s area of Matobo District, Rustlers Gorge, Mankonkoni and Shashi in Gwanda South and Chicualacuala in Beitbridge East. There are further two small irrigation schemes near the border town of Beitbridge.
In a commendable move the Government allocated plots and water to local villagers on the national irrigation farms at Arda’s Antelope Estate near Maphisa in Matobo District and Ngwezi Estate in Mangwe District.
These developments were not linked to any political expediency but were an expression of social responsibility. All the communal irrigation farms, unfortunately, have not been functional for the better part of independence and can only be a slur on the Government’s sense of responsibility.