It is early in the morning, as Makion Manatse, a man of 20 years and father to one child, stand straight and still, his eyes fixed on a heap of sand he has been excavated.
A few minutes later he hears the drone of a vehicle. A rickety old model of a Mercedes Benz lorry fumes towards him in the half light. This is going to be his first sale of the day. Further away, two other young men are working on another heap. Standing atop another outcrop, a young man surveys the land with a regal glance.
As economic hardship bites ever more deeply for Zimbabwe’s unemployed millions, many are turning to sand panning as the only way out of poverty and hunger. With the boom in housing projects in the adjacent town of Chitungwiza, these sand poachers have a ready source of clients. Half a dozen wrecked lorries are seen carrying loads of sand, plying between the town and Masona village in Seke rural area. The sandmen earn an average of $40 per day.
This has enabled me to feed my family and save for my house which I am building in the village, says Manatse. The rural district council does not get any revenue from the sale of the sand. Efforts by police to stop the illegal digging are often hampered by corrupt officials who are paid bribes. Manatse says sand panning is as dangerous to human life as it is bad for the environment.
It took him and his colleagues four hours to retrieve one of their fellow panners. “We dug and dug, fortunately we found him still breathing. One of the outcrops he was digging had collapsed and he was lucky to escape death,” recounted the seasoned sand panner.
“These Dongas are so dangerous. That’s why we keep away from areas that have become too dangerous to mine.
In 2007-8, at the height of the worst economic recession in living memory, several panners invaded the area. They left behind them an area filled with yawning dongas. So far an area covering a distance of about two km has been devastated a cause of much concern for nearby villagers.
This land used to be our pasture. With the digging going on like this, we are going to be left with no land for our cattle to graze on, said one villager who refused to be named. Despite regular police raids Manatse doesnt believe illegal operations will stop. Plenty of people are still building houses around the town. This only place they can buy sand at a cheap price, he said. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Francis Nhema, has spoken out against the practice.
We have collectively come to the conclusion that the environmental costs emanating from the panning activities far outweigh the benefits accruing to the panners, he told journalists recently. Nhema said panning had caused contamination of water bodies, indiscriminate cutting down of trees, and destruction of fragile habitats. The mining also eroded any gains from the land reform exercise, as agricultural land was riddled with holes, he said. The minister added that the countrys economic success hinged on economically viable and environmentally sustainable policies.
Post published in: News