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Munyaradzi Doma in Zvishavane
Authorities at Runde Rural District Council are concerned over chrome mining activities, which have caused serious land degradation in the district. Runde RDC chief Mr Gorden Moyo said while it was good that people had been allowed to mine chrome, the negative effects on the environment are tremendous.

“Council is still waiting for the approval of its by-laws. Liberalisation of the chrome mining sector, although it empowered our communities, has led to serious land degradation. This has led to an increase in open and dangerous pits that are a threat to both human and animal life,” he said.

The Environmental Management Agency’s district officer for Zvishavane Mrs Sally Maguwu, said most miners don’t invest in land rehabilitation, hence the continued presence of uncovered pits.

“Chrome miners only concentrate on their activities, and they don’t consider the rehabilitation. So, what we do is we then issue an Environmental Protection Order, which will give them a time frame to rehabilitate the area where degradation would have occurred.

“Failure to comply with the order will then lead to prosecution. The cases are rampant especially at chrome mines, so for the survey we did recently, we wanted to see the level of degradation and the stakeholders who are in there, considering that there is the 50 percent, which was ceded to Government by ZIMASCO. So, we wanted to know all aspects,” she said.

Mrs Maguwu said since most of the chrome mines are not yet registered, mining activities are being done with no clear policy on land rehabilitation.

“So, you will find out that pending regularisation, the land degradation that is happening is huge because, let’s say the people are told to move, they will just leave huge pits and no one attends to them.”

Secretary of the Zimbabwe National Chrome Miners Association Mr Hilary Sibanda shared similar sentiments saying they are facing challenges with uncovered pits. He said efforts to deal with the anomaly have failed to produce desired results.