The discovery of gold deposits in Malawi has left hotspots pitted, endangering the environment and human health.
Every morning, thousands of Malawians desperate for quick riches dig and shovel tonnes of soil for an ounce of gold or less.
“It’s backbreaking, but more like betting. Sometimes you win, but many times you don’t get anything. Still, you try again, hoping it’s a lucky day,” says Peter Chagunda, digging rocks along Chitimbe Stream, which splits Traditional Authority Phalula in Balaka District.
The farmer switched to gold digging in 2019 when a Chinese gang, accompanied by government officials from Capital Hill in Lilongwe, excavated half his crop field “but vanished without a goodbye after extracting the precious stones”.
“Since then, I do this to buy daily food and support my family,” he says, digging deeper.
According to group village head Chitimbe, “the so-called mining investors vanished one by one at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, without paying him a coin or filling the yawning pits.
Dozens of locals work all day-long in the pitted streams and hills.
The gold rush has left natural forests, fertile farmlands and waterways shrinking, with abandoned pits and mounting loose soils.
However, concerns are rising about water, air and land pollution due to mercury use to accelerate gold panning.
Chitimbe laments: “I banned mercury use because it is slowly poisoning our health. But we still get whitish alluvial gold, meaning our neighbours upstream are still using it.”
Mercury is used to extract gold from ore by forming a heavy mixture which is heated, evaporating the toxic element from the amalgam, leaving the gold.
Artisanal and small-scale mining communities find this method cheaper, quicker and easier.
“Anything that makes gold panning simpler cannot just end like that. Many still use mercury because everyone wants easy money,” said a gold digger in Chitimbe.
The locals said mercury is readily on sale in mining communities and nearby trading centres, where they meet buyers, sponsors and middlemen.
Slow poison
But vapourised mercury from burning sites pollutes the air, soil and sediments of the waterbodies where bacteria transforms it into methylmercury that poisons the food chain when absorbed by fish and other creatures.
The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) say artisanal and small-scale mining contributes about 37 percent of mercury emissions—the largest source of air and water mercury pollution.
However, the hidden cost extends to future generations.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mercury is toxic to human health, but particularly harms the child in the womb and early in life.
It warns: “The health impacts of mercury are numerous including kidney and nervous system damage and skin problems. Exposure of the foetus to methylmercury poses danger to the unborn child.
“The inorganic salts of mercury are corrosive to the skin, eyes and intestines. They may induce kidney toxicity if ingested.”
Symptoms include tremors, sleeplessness, memory loss, headaches and learning difficulties.
However, mercury use persists 12 years after Malawi joined the global treaty to eliminate its use from such mining and processing.
Currently, 153 countries have signed the Minamata Convention adopted in 2013 to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of the naturally occurring metal used in everyday objects, including thermometres.
The UN agreement signalled authorities’ commitment to controlling human-aided mercury emissions by banning new mercury mines, phasing out existing ones and reducing mercury use in other products.
“Why mercury?” Unep clarifies. “Mercury is in the top 10 of chemicals of major public health concern according to the WHO. By enhancing the reduction of mercury pollution, the convention protects the environment and the lives of millions of people globally.”
At the sixth conference of parties held in Geneva in March, Malawi backed a resolution to enhance efforts on artisanal and small-scale gold mining and reinforce cooperation on mercury supply, trade and waste.
However, enforcement remains scanty in both licensed and unlicensed gold mines where locals work long hours to supply wealthy merchants and their fronts.
This has left the environment under siege, but regulatory bodies, created by law, say they lack staff and resources to police mining sites, often tucked in remote areas.
Malawi Environmental Protection Agency (Mepa) chief Wilfred Kadewa says the regulatory body created by the Environmental Management Act of 2017 sensitises the public to the dangers of unsustainable mining practices.
“In the case of unregulated mining, as Mepa, we come in with education and awareness. Artisanal miners may use chemicals like cyanide, without knowing the harm it brings to their lives and the environment at large. When there is good interface between them and us, through scientific studies, we would advise on alternatives or propose mitigation measures,” he says.
Chiefs’ demand action
However, some chiefs near mining sites are petitioning hard for bold action to make laws work following the collapse of illegal mines that have killed 10 illegal miners in Kasungu since September 30 when a crumbling tunnel crushed eight and injured five at Gogodi, T/A Nsuza.
On Friday, one died and two were injured at Chimbiya, T/A Chitanthamapiri, where another died two weeks ago.
“Some people use mercury which is hazardous to our lives and the environment. Environmental protectors should come and end this pollution. Mercury should not be in ordinary hands. By and by, it harms our well-being. This must come to a stop,” says Chitanthamapiri of Kasungu.
T/A Mwanyanja, who buried the late Moffat Nyirongo, 35, at the weekend, blames wealthy gold buyers and their go-betweens for fuelling illegal mining and mercury use.
“The locals are desperate for money, so they take unimaginable risks, endangering lives and the environment. This is why the government must act decisively,” he says.
