Environmental crisis looms large as mining wreaks havoc on Hwange

By Andile Mvundla

Vostile Creatives Trust, a community based organisation that promotes environment conservation in Hwange, has bemoaned the impacts of irresponsible mining practices that are slowly turning the town into a toxic hazardous area.

Residents in the mining town are already suffering from deteriorating environment conditions, including air and water pollution as well as rising temperatures due to the coal mining activities taking place in their communities.

In an interview with Skyz Metro FM on the sidelines of the National Dialogue on Debt, Inequality and extractives, Vostile Creatives Trust director, Mr. Malvin Daka stressed on the effects of mining activities in the town, urging the government to strengthen its legal framework on the practices of mining in the country.

He said that the residents in Hwange are experiencing the harsh effects of the ongoing activities which has seen some being displaced from their homes.

“There is now growing disorder in our town to such an extent that you can wake up with authorities telling you that you are allocating mine land without having been notified about the issue.

Secondly there is lack of consultations with the residents by the surrounding mines regarding the challenges they face due to the mining activities in the area, leaving the community exposed to dangers such as pollution, sub seam fires and being victims to human wildlife conflict, ” said Daka.

With the mines extracting the valuable mineral, Mr Daka stated that most of them fail to meet up with the basic community aspirations such as ploughing back to its residents by building schools, investing in the health sector as well as providing high quality conducive working emvironment with miners facing different kinds of abuses from their employees.

As part of solutions to the growing environment pressures faced by the town due to mining, Mr Daka said that there is need for mining companies to adopt sustainable mining practices as a way to reduce harm to the environment and its surroundings.

“As a way to preserve the environment and land for future use, there is need for the mines to start implementing sustainable mining practices in the area and ensure that they inject a budget which looks at the rehabilitation of mines to reduce land degradation and pollution,” added Daka.

Hwange is home to more than fourteen private owned mining companies that are involved in coal and brick making production, which nclude Chinese owned Dingson Colliery, Zhong Jian, Tutu Investments, Zimberly Investments Coal Mining and Coking amongst others, making it vulnerable to impacts of mining.

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