Illegal mining a health and environmental crisis

Zimbabwe's dire economic situation has forced many families into illegal mining to eke out a living. The environmental degradation and pollution wrought by their activities is increasingly a cause for concern. Both the authorities and NGOs have warned of significant health and environmental risks associated with the widespread practice of illegal mining. The prevalence of prostitution in these communities has also raised fears of increased HIV infection among panners. One of the major illegal gold panning camps to have sprung up recently lies along the Inyankuni river, about 55km from the second city Bulawayo in Matabeleland South. It is a mirror of what occurs in similar locations throughout the country. Zimbabwe's alluvial gold miners are a unique community, living in clusters of makeshift shelters dotted along major rivers. For the most part driven out of their homes by poverty, they are lured into the camps by the potential riches of gold, a gram of which now fetches up to Zim $105,000 (about US $131) on the black market. Stories of panners who went from rags to riches are often told in the villages, and continue to motivate both young and old to join the new rush for gold. Although alluvial mining has indeed brought riches to the lucky few, it comes at an ernomous cost to the environment. The river banks and beds from which the yellow metal is extracted bear the scars of this thriving enterprise. In the search for gold, river beds have been scooped out and their banks heavily burrowed into, worsening the growing problem of dams along major rivers being silted up. Although gold panning is an old problem in Zimbabwe, caused by the abundance of alluvial gold, the past three years of plummeting agricultural production, natural disasters and rapid economic decline have seen people flock to river banks. Miners say it is one of few means Zimbabweans have to put food on the table and keep their children in school. Illegal mining is also driven by a high demand for the precious metal on local and regional markets - notably South Africa and Botswana. IRIN visited the major rivers of Matabeleland South - the Inyankuni, Insiza, Umzingwane, Tuli and Shashe - and found they were home to hundreds of people. Gibson Sibanda is a 40-year-old father of five. He told IRIN that "panning is so hard a job that no one [would] do it if given a choice". "It is the hunger, the drought and the certainty of watching a family die that pushed all of us to this job. Until 2000 I was a gold miner but I was retrenched, as the company recorded a string of losses and closed shop. Without a job, I had no choice but to come here. I am so proud because my children are now back at school." In a good week, Sibanda said, he can find as much as five grams of alluvial gold, but can also sometimes toil for days without finding anything substantial. MORE ILLEGAL MINERS By the beginning of next year at least 5.5 million Zimbabweans - half the population - will depend on food aid to survive. With the threat of another poor harvest, the panners agree that in the coming year many more impoverished Zimbabweans will turn to illegal mining. "Having been here for the past two years, I can tell you that by February next year, the number of panners here will be double what you found today. This terrible drought will bring more people out into the rivers, because gold is the only accessible precious commodity we can sell and survive on," Sibanda predicted. According to estimates by the Umzingwane AIDS Network (UAN), an AIDS service organisation working among the panning communities, the camps are "a health time bomb". About 3,000 miners live in the Inyankuni camp alone. The risk of disease is worsened by overcrowding and generally poor hygienic practices. "We are dealing with ever-increasing cases of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases from the camps. It can only get worse, because there are commercial sex workers in those little communities," said UAN coordinator Lucia Malemane. The Bulawayo City Council, which monitors panning around its water catchment areas, has reported that the widespread use of mercury, and in some cases cyanide, in processing the gold, posed a serious threat to the health of communities living further down the river. "There are high chances that communities downstream might be drinking chemically tainted water, as panners release the water back into the streams after use. It is a big problem, but hard to solve because of the economic push and pull factors driving it," said Bulawayo city's director of engineering, Peter Sibanda. The council blames alluvial gold mining for the massive degradation of riverine environments in its catchment areas. It says the accumulation of silt produced by miners reduces the storage capacity of dams, and threatens the already precarious water security situation in the city. Mining activities have also been blamed for the destruction of vegetation that thrives only on river banks, while the camps have contributed to an increase in game poaching in conservancies. The animals are targeted by the gold miners as well as communities that have been newly resettled on former commercial farms. "Game meat is almost a staple diet here - there are people who supply the camps with meat. Warthog, impala and kudu meat is most popular here, and it comes at very affordable prices. Gold buyers also keep the leopard hunters busy because they are ever demanding the hide, which they say fetches good money wherever they sell it," said another miner, Bongani Sibanda. Government efforts to stamp out gold panning have made little headway, and fines that range from as low as Zim $500 (about US $0.62) to Zim $2,000 (about US $2.50), hardly serve as a deterrent. Corruption in the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) is reportedly also oiling the trade. Miners claim they often exchange a few grams of gold for freedom if they are caught, and regular panners allegedly pay some officers monthly "taxes". Last year a number of police officers from the Matabeleland South provincial headquarters in Gwanda were arrested for alleged involvement with gold miners, and theft of gold to be used as evidence in cases against those arrested. Matabeleland South provincial spokesman Johnson Nyoni could not be reached for comment on whether a new police crackdown against miners and buyers was proving effective. Authorities are seeking to limit the amount of gold sold into the black market and force people to sell directly to the Reserve Bank, where the going rate is Zim $60,000 (about US $75) compared to the black market, where it sells for between Zim $90,000 (about US $112) and Zim $105,000 (about US $131). AUTHORITIES HAMSTRUNG Government environmental protection agencies, such as the Department of Natural Resources, are badly affected by a shortage of staff, vehicles and fuel, leaving them unable to conduct field examinations. Due to a lack of monitoring, illegal mining has now begun to threaten the country's road and rail networks. Last year, train services between Harare and Bulawayo were temporarily suspended after miners in Kwekwe burrowed beneath the railway line. The Ministry of Transport and Communications was recently forced to make hasty repairs to the Bulawayo-Johannesburg line after miners working about 25km south of Bulawayo damaged the track in pursuit of a gold seam. Noel Dube, the former provincial natural resources officer for Matabeleland South, admitted that solving the alluvial gold mining problem was an enormous challenge. "What is needed is massive public education campaigns to raise public awareness on the need to balance economic activities with conservation. If all resources are used sustainably, there would be no problem. Arresting people is a temporary solution because it does not take away the poverty that drives the people into plundering natural and wildlife resources," he said. The Natural Resources Board was currently engaged in education campaigns and setting up community-based environmental monitoring groups among the newly resettled people. "This is to encourage conservation activism, so that the people can take charge of the management of local resources. It's a daunting task, but it can be done if there are enough resources and cooperation from the communities," Dube added. Joseph Tasosa, the executive director of the National Environment Trust (NET), said the community conservation groups, which worked under the guidance of the NRB in the early 1980s, could also be brought on board. "When communities know that the resources are theirs, and really benefit from them, they will not have problems understanding the need for conservation and sustainable use of resources," Tasosa explained. Last month Mining Development Minister Edward Chindori Chininga said government would come up with measures to rein in the alluvial gold miners. "Gold panning, including its environmental impacts, is one area we are seriously looking at this year. Panners can apply for licences and join mining associations if they want to legalise their business and benefit from [government's] small-scale miners' support schemes," he said. Chininga also warned that "anyone operating outside that will be dealt with according to the law".