By Tendai Chisiri
Small scale miners have descended in the Chimanimani mountains in search of gold through alluvial mining and during the Covid-19 induced lock down, the heritage of the country like the bubbling spring has been destroyed.
Bubbling spring is a tourist attraction in the Eastern Highlands and is of cultural significance to the Chimamani community but small scale miners destroyed one in search of gold.
“During the liberation struggle , freedom fighters were first brought to the bubbling springs before going to Mozambique for military training.The bubbling spring could help to weed out taitors from the liberation army”, said Chimanimani Tourism Association vice chairman and guide Collen Sibanda.
Sibanda said the sacredness of a bubbling spring is the reason why the small scale miners dug it up.”They thought they were going to find a lot of gold but unfortunately a large fish came out of the bubbling spring and the miners ran away” he added.
Whilst Covid-19 pandemic has wrecked havoc the entire world, it is also imperative for the nation to safeguard their economy as Covid-19 pandemic will end and life goes back to normal but tourism would have lost said environmentalist and Bird life Zimbabwe CEO Julia Pierini.
“Small scale miners started alluvial minig in 2017 and it has gone out of control with water from the activity contaminating many rivers as they mine were the streams begin at the top of the mountains” Pierini said.”With the situation at hand, tourism is being destroyed but the pandemic will end so the respective local authorities must play their part”, she said.
Climate change has exacerbated to the harm of the tourism industry by small scale miners.”Cyclone Idai left a trail of destruction in the industry as roads were destroyed making other parts of parks inaccessible to tourists. Small scale miners are taking advantage of this and mining in these parts illegally”, said Sibanda.
This is not the first time the holiday destination has found itself at a menace by the miners.In 2017, Chimanimani Tourism Association had to lobby for the area to be changed from being a mining area to a holiday destination.”We had to lobby after the Government had revealed in their master plan that the area was a mining area”, related Sibanda.”This time around the miners have given themselves too many rights without the Government approval”, stated Sibanda. He feared that the small scale miners may not be driven away from the parks.
The alluvial mining is being carried in rivers that confluence with Rusitu river which leads to the Indian Ocean.
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