The Sunday News
Seone Amidu, Sunday News Reporter
UMZINGWANE Member of Parliament Brigadier-General (Rtd) Levy Mayihlome has appealed to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) to enforce laws that protect the environment from illegal mining activities.
Speaking at the official opening of an EMA district office last week, Brig-Gen (Rtd) Mayihlome said there was a lot of land degradation caused by illegal small-scale miners.
He also called on gold detectors to be licensed.
He said illegal mining was also leading to soil erosion, contamination of water sources, violence and death of livestock in unprotected mines.
Umzingwane is endowed with a lot of gold which brings people from all parts of the country to extract the minerals but they leave the environment scarred and make no efforts to reclaim the damage.
“Most of the damage to the environment is coming from illegal gold miners. We request that those who detect for gold be licensed and no one should operate without a licence. They should also be given geographical areas where they will operate from because as it is now, they roam everywhere and they have no respect for people’s properties.”
Brig-Gen (Rtd) Mayihlome added that Umzingwane wetlands needed to be recreated and regenerated as most of them have been affected by gold panning activities.
He said he believed the opening of Umzingwane EMA offices would bring much relief and ideas about regenerating the wetlands which would improve the ecosystem.
“We have a lot of trees like lantana camaras, acecias in Umzingwane District even in farms but these trees have little commercial value.
“Hopefully the EMA offices will also be used to generate trees with commercial value, let’s have programmes which encourage people to preserve trees that are used commercially and use them to make furniture and even stockfeed like what is done in Namibia,” he said.
