MINING companies that neglect the environment after extracting resources must pay heavily for failing to properly decommission operations, experts have said.
MARY MUNDEYA
Environmentalists say the Environmental Management Agency (Ema) must be tough against companies in the extractive sector that cause environmental degradation.
Zimbabwe has witnessed immense environmental degradation, whose impact has been described by environmentalists as catastrophic.
Lawyer and environmental activist Darlington Chidarara bemoaned the extreme levels of environmental degradation in different mining communities across the country and called for immediate action to force the companies to comply with given regulations.
“If you are to go to Chiadzwa today, there are a lot of areas that were left with open pits and areas that have become deserts inside the mining concession left by the companies that had their operations stopped by (the late) former president Robert Mugabe before the establishment of the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC),” he said.
“If you go to Mhondongori in Zvishavane, you will find sort of oceans where a lot of water is gathered and has big and open pits that no one cares about rehabilitating.”
Chidarara said there was a need for a properly managed rehabilitation fund which can be used to rehabilitate the mining claims when the mining companies leave.
“As per the Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill, we need to properly manage a properly managed rehabilitation fund which can then be used to actually do the rehabilitation when the mining companies pack to leave,’’ he said.
The executive director of Environment Africa, one of the leading environmental organisations in southern Africa, Paradzayi Hodzonge, told journalists after a tour of the food security programme they are engaged in with farmers in Guruve that the government should strike a balance between economic development and conserving natural resources.
“There is need to strike a balance between wanting to achieve economic development whilst at the same time we also want to look at conserving what we have for the future generations,” he said.
“The onus is on the government and regulatory authorities to ensure that investors that invest in the country particularly in the mining sector take responsibility in terms of rehabilitation of areas where they have mined.”
Ema’s publicity officer, Amkela Sidange, said her organisation was in the process of lobbying for a fund to rehabilitate neglected spaces.
“The degraded landscapes that you see over the country were affected by legacy issues. Those are projects that came prior to the establishment of the Environmental Management Act. As the agency currently we are lobbying for the government to actually set aside funds that will go towards rehabilitation of these decommissioned mines that came before the establishment of the Environmental Management Act”.
Sidange said on the compliance rate for rehabilitating decommissioned mines, there were differences between registered and non-registered miners.
“The compliance rate has been subjective, for those that have formalised their activities the response has been high but there are informal activities that we term as illegal which often the agency comes across, especially during our routine inspections whose compliance is low,” she said.
An estimated average of 262 349 hectares of forests are being lost annually, while thousands of hectares of land consisting of abandoned mining shafts and pits are lying idle in former mining concessions, the authorities said.
