MAZOWE, Zimbabwe, OCTOBER 29 (IPS) – With homemade tents scattered, hordes of artisanal gold miners congregate in the village of Mazowe in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland province, where they have cut down thousands of trees for processing. turn gold ore.
Patrick Makwati (29 years old), working with his 23-year-old cousin, Sybeth Mwendauya, are some of the miners who mined without a license who went down to the village of Mazowe, cutting down trees to process gold.
The two cousins said they were using the trees to process the gold they mined because they insisted they couldn’t afford the coal that could have been an alternative for them.
Illegal gold miners, such as Makwati and Mwendauya, claim to only use wood when processing gold.
However, while the cousins camped in the bushes of the Mazowe countryside and cooked, they also turned to fires.
“We depend on the trees that we cut down because we can’t afford coal and we don’t have electricity,” Makwati told IPS.
In Zimbabwe, a ton of coal costs US$30 before shipping costs are included, something illegal gold miners like Makwati and Mwendauya cannot afford.
The two cousins, like many other illegal gold miners, relied solely on wood fires to heat their gold ore.
In areas like Mazowe, forests have been cleared, thanks to gold miners, and now these areas look like a little desert.
Forestry officials of the Zimbabwean government lament the steady loss of forests every year.
According to the data of the Forestry Commission here, each year this country loses 262,000 hectares of trees due to different reasons.
Illegal gold miners were considered one of these people.
Environmental activist Monalisa Mafambirei, based in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, says 30% of forests are lost to illegal logging.
“You talk about Mazowe as a case study, but of course, this is not the only area that has lost trees to illegal gold miners. In fact, the problem our forests face is widespread because gold miners are all over the country, where gold is mined, and trees continue to be victims as miners cut down gold. them carelessly to use when processing gold ore or when they’re going to clean up the land they mine,” said a climate change government official here, who said she was not authorized to be interviewed. media inquiries, told IPS.
Even environmental campaigners in the southern African country, like Gibson Mawere, blame artisanal gold miners for inciting deforestation in the country.
“Illegal gold miners are not regulated, and they cut down trees, clear the areas where they mine gold, and they also use firewood to process gold ore because you should remember that miners This waterfall has neither electricity nor coal to use. Mawere told IPS.
As the blame game plays out, it could be years before a solution is found to stop deforestation by illegal gold miners in Zimbabwe.
For manual gold miners, the answer lies in formal employment.
Without that, they say, the forest may continue to suffer.
Gold miners like Makwati and his cousin blame the country’s struggling economy.
“If we didn’t cut down the trees, we wouldn’t have any money at the end of the day. We use the fire from the trees we cut down to process the gold ore before selling the pure gold. With the official work, we will not damage the environment nor destroy the trees,” Makwati told IPS.
Report of the United Nations Office IPS
By @IPSNewsUNBureau
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