Online Reporter
Theseus Mauruki Shambare, [email protected]
THE road from Zvishavane towards Mafala gradually sheds its urban character. About 10 kilometres along the Zvishavane-Bulawayo highway, a dusty track branches off into an area where artisanal mining has dramatically reshaped the landscape.
Patches of woodland have been cleared and burnt. Grazing lands have been opened up and the earth turned over as miners dig in search of gold.
For many local families, the mining boom has brought opportunities that were previously out of reach.
Zvishavane Original Residents and Ratepayers Association chairman Mr Simango Kamino acknowledges the positive impact mining has had on employment.
“Our children used to be unemployed, but now they are getting employment,” he said.
“Some are employed as artisanal miners or are involved in various mining ventures. So, we can see that livelihoods have changed.”
However, as one ventures deeper into Mafala, a different reality becomes visible.
“We are concerned about land degradation,” Mr Kamino said. “They leave behind open pits which are a danger to human life. They leave these huge pits, which also deprive livestock of grazing areas. Animals can fall into these pits and die.”
The scars left behind by mining are difficult to ignore. Across the area, abandoned pits dot the landscape, serving as a constant reminder of the environmental cost that often accompanies the search for precious minerals.
At one homestead stands former teacher Mr Jabulani Ncube, tending a thriving vegetable garden nourished by water from a borehole.
For Mr Ncube, water security became a personal mission.
“I realised that water is life, especially as our rainfall patterns continue to change. I decided to drill a borehole so that my family would always have water for domestic use and for our garden,” said Mr Ncube.
“I also encouraged the community to come together and drill a borehole because we cannot talk about resilience when people do not have access to safe water.”
His flourishing garden demonstrates the value of planning for an increasingly uncertain climate. Yet beyond the green vegetables and carefully watered plots, the landscape tells another story.
Mining activity continues to alter the environment around him.
“It pains me to see trees being cut down and burnt as people search for gold.
“These trees are part of the environment we have always depended on. When they are destroyed, we are also destroying the land and the water systems that sustain us.”
Mr Ncube is equally concerned about the shrinking grazing land available to local farmers.
“We have livestock that depend on this land. When miners clear the grazing areas and leave the land disturbed, they are taking away something that our families depend on,” he said.
Yet despite his concerns, Mr Ncube does not believe mining should come to a halt.
“I am not saying people should stop mining because some are surviving through it,” he said.
“But they must mine responsibly and protect the environment. We cannot look for gold today while destroying the lives of tomorrow.”
His words capture a challenge facing not only Mafala, but Zimbabwe as a whole: how to unlock the economic benefits of mining without undermining the land and water systems that communities depend on to withstand climate shocks.
While the industry is creating opportunities, Mr Kamino believes the influx of mining wealth has also brought social challenges.
He points to growing concerns over substance abuse, robbery, murder and sexually transmitted infections.
“Our children have access to money and are now exposed to dangerous drugs and substance abuse,” Mr Kamino said.
Zimbabwe depends on minerals such as gold, chrome and lithium to generate jobs, foreign currency earnings and economic growth.
At the same time, the country relies on healthy rivers, productive soils, grazing land and functioning ecosystems to cope with droughts, erratic rainfall and other effects of climate change.
Environmental Management Agency (EMA) environmental education and publicity manager and spokesperson Mrs Amkela Sidange said surveys and inspections carried out in chrome-mining areas of Midlands Province revealed extensive land degradation, with rehabilitation efforts failing to keep pace.
“Mining-induced land degradation is perpetrated by both small-scale artisanal illegal/legal miners and large-scale mining operations,” she said.
Small-scale miners, particularly those operating along waterways, have targeted alluvial gold deposits in rivers such as the Dohwe, Mtshingwe, Mundi, Ngezi and Mwenezi.
At the same time, large-scale open-cast mining operations continue to place pressure on grazing land and surrounding ecosystems.
EMA’s enforcement statistics illustrate the scale of the challenge.
Mrs Sidange said the agency conducted 1 413 inspections and issued 181 tickets to mining operations.
A total of 151 tickets related to mining without valid Environmental and Social Impact
Assessment certificates or breaches of their conditions, while 93 concerned effluent and solid-waste disposal licences or pollution.
Another 15 tickets were issued for failure to implement dust-abatement measures.
EMA also issued 107 environmental protection orders directing mining operations to rehabilitate degraded areas.
“The rehabilitation of the mined pits was lagging behind, hence issuance of environmental protection orders for progressive rehabilitation as mining continues,” Mrs Sidange said.
She stressed that environmental considerations should not be treated as an afterthought.
“Unsustainable extraction of minerals carries significant environmental costs, making it essential that all mining projects integrate environmental management into all stages of the project cycle,” she said.
The environmental consequences are particularly concerning because mining is taking place at a time when Zimbabwe’s water resources are already under increasing pressure.
In June, the Government declared a state of disaster over degraded riverine ecosystems, triggering an emergency rehabilitation programme targeting waterways damaged by mining activities.
Among the affected river systems are the Mazowe, Save, Sanyati, Umzingwane, Mtshingwe and Mutare rivers.
Siltation threatens water storage capacity and river flows, while pollution jeopardises domestic water supplies and undermines irrigation schemes that support food production.
The concerns raised by Mr Ncube in Mafala therefore form part of a much broader debate taking place around the world.
Thousands of kilometres away, Zimbabwe is advancing similar concerns at the 17th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Running from August 17 to August 28 under the theme “Restoring Land. Restoring Hope”, COP17 has brought together delegates from 197 Parties to discuss land degradation, desertification and drought.
Government says Zimbabwe is advocating for a legally binding global drought protocol, increased climate-action financing, land degradation neutrality and sustainable rangeland management.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Climate and Wildlife Simon Masanga said Zimbabwe remains committed to ensuring global environmental frameworks deliver meaningful support to vulnerable communities.
Who Pays for the Harm?
For ActionAid Zimbabwe country director Dr Selina Pasirayi, mineral development must not shift environmental costs onto local communities.
“The campaign challenges the notion that green minerals are automatically ‘clean’ simply because they support electric vehicles, renewable energy and low-carbon technologies,” she said.
“A transition cannot be considered clean or just if the environmental and social costs are merely relocated to mining communities.”
The organisation’s #PayTheHarm campaign advocates responsible mining practices, stronger community participation and effective remedies for communities affected by environmental damage.
Dr Pasirayi said the polluter-pays principle should go beyond financial penalties.
“The central advocacy position will be that polluter pays must mean ‘polluter restores and repairs’,” she said.
The recently gazetted Statutory Instrument 92 of 2026, the Environmental Management (Environmental Liability: Polluter Pays) Regulations, provides a legal framework for environmental liability and restoration.
If Zimbabwe is promoting land restoration and drought resilience on the international stage, then mining companies must also contribute towards restoring the landscapes their operations disturb.
Back in Mafala, Mr Ncube’s vegetable garden stands as a powerful symbol of resilience.
Thanks to a borehole, it remains productive despite increasingly uncertain weather conditions.
Yet beyond the garden fence, mining continues to transform a landscape that supports those same livelihoods.
Mining cannot be judged solely by the amount of gold, chrome or lithium extracted from the ground. Zimbabwe does not have to choose between mining and development. Rather,
it must decide what kind of development mining should deliver.
If mineral wealth creates jobs, infrastructure and national revenue while protecting land and water resources, mining can become part of Zimbabwe’s resilience story.
However, if today’s mineral riches come at the cost of tomorrow’s polluted rivers, abandoned pits and depleted grazing lands, the country risks exchanging one form of vulnerability for another.
Along the dusty road into Mafala, that future is already taking shape.
There are abandoned pits, cleared woodlands and grazing areas under growing pressure.
There is also Mr Ncube’s flourishing garden, protected by a reliable water source.
Zimbabwe’s challenge is to ensure the first does not destroy the second.
Because the true measure of mineral wealth will not simply be what the country removes from the ground today. It will be whether the land remains capable of sustaining its people tomorrow.
