By Nyasha Dube
A new project being implemented by Silveira House is set to place grassroots communities at the center of mining advocacy and governance.
The Community Led Mining Advocacy and Governance project has brought together community stakeholders including mine actors who came up with combined locally designed action plans to reduce Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) risks.
The project also seeks to bolster the communities affected by mining activity in their capacity to voice out their concerns and advocacy in addressing environmental and social challenges brought about by mining activities in their areas.
So far, the organisation has engaged 12 gold and lithium mining wards in Mberengwa since the beginning of the project cycle in January.
Mberengwa is a mining hotspot with a lot of informal and apparently irresponsible mining taking place, especially following the discovery of lithium. The environmental impacts of such practices have proven a heavy toll on the local communities where this mining is taking place.
The project, however, has brought mining impacted communities and mine actors together, and the action plan, if implemented, will see land rehabilitation, among other resolutions, taking place.
On the ecological front, some mines have already started refilling unclaimed and disused pits to demonstrate their commitment to revamping the community.
In an interview, Silveira House project coordinator Zandile Mvududu said the affected communities should take the lead on issues to do with mining induced environmental degradation.
“With the gold and lithium rushes that have been going on in Mberengwa, there has been a lot of activity by miners. With mineral rushes comes a lot of environmental, social and governance risks so we are looking at the impacts of such as well as to proffer community led solutions to these challenges,”
Zandile Mvududu
The project’s end goal is to minimise the existential conflicts and bring forth social cohesion through adopting non-confrontational strategies.
She went on to state that Silveira House and its partners in the project “…have since conducted an environmental social audit led by the people of Mberengwa and the findings were validated by all stakeholders in the district who include government departments, traditional leaders and local authorities. The findings include issues of environmental and water degradation, gender based violence, child marriages, health risks among others.”
Whilst the community identified challenges, they also identified positives which include the Maringambizi road rehabilitation project, although they said they wish it could be tarred.
The survey sought to contribute to some of the NDS 1 priority areas on Environment protection, climate resilience and natural resource management, as well as buttress the Environmental Management Act.
Part of the solutions proffered by the community included the revitalization of environment subcommittees, multi stakeholders engagement, engagement of mine actors on Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Impact Assessment monitoring.