adminIn an interview on Tuesday, Mr Chigona said the agency was concerned with rampant land degradation caused by metal detectors countrywide.
“As the agency, we have since written a paper to the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development raising concerns to the rampant land degradation that has been brought about by these new gold prospecting technologies,” said Mr Chigona.
“The gold or metal detecting machines, which are now used by both gold claim holders and illegal gold panners has resulted in massive gold degradation especially in gold mineral rich areas.”
Mr Chigona said the most affected areas were Shurugwi, Kwekwe, Zvishavane and Mberengwa in the Midlands province and Gwanda in Matabeleland South province.
“If you go to these areas, you would find that the land has been heavily dug with gullies emerging in some instances owing to this new method of prospecting for gold.
We have thus approached the Ministry of Mines to at least come up with a specific legal method of prospecting for gold than what is going on at the moment. If this serious land degradation is left to continue, we will have failed as environmentalists,” he said.
Mr Chigona said the problem with the new gold prospecting method was that the machines were not accurate.
He said the major defect on the machine was that it could not detect the amount of gold deposits found at a certain area.
“The other problem is that it even detects any metal underground. This has seen illegal gold panners using these machines, digging holes and gullies everywhere and leaving them bare. These machines again cannot determine the amount of gold at a certain area, and this has left the land bleeding,” said Mr Chigona.
derick.khumalo