Impacts of Illegal Mining on Human Being, the Case of Huye District
Abstract
The current study was about the impacts of illegal mining on wellbeing of people. More specifically the study intended to: (i) identify illegal mining practices in Huye District; (ii) Assess the social, economic and environmental impacts of illegal mining on wellbeing of people of Huye District. (iii) Find out solutions to social, economic and environmental impacts of illegal mining on environment and wellbeing of people of Huye District.
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Introduction
Mining has been a most concern activity for economy’sgrowth Worldwide. UNEP (2009) says that mining is an activity that involves digging of surface and subsurface for the purpose of exploiting and processing the minerals for just various uses. Gibson (2018) reveals that extracted minerals can be copper and nickel; precious metals like gold and silver; iron; uranium; coal; etc.
Mining can be legal or illegal depending on the status of rights owned by the miners. More specifically, Gibson et al, (2018) said that illegal mining refers to violations of both specialized laws and regulations for mining that protect the environment and human welfare. UNEP (2009) added that illegal mining for the most world countries is characterized by the lack of land rights, mining licenses and transportation permit.
Mineral resources belong to the government; and therefore they must be exploited by the miners with the legal rights regarding to the laws and regulations (Phillipe, 2019). Many specialists and policymakers confirm that illegal mining are seriously connected to the poverty for people living nearby the mineral areas; and this is mainly due to soil erosion, destruction of farms and crops thereby small agricultural harvest.
In Peru, researches indicate that illegal mining lead to heavy metal and chemical poisoning of environments (Fashola et al, 2016), and the erosion of soils (Dissanayake and Rupasinghe, 2017); hence, USAID in the partnership with Peru works towards this, through the rehabilitation of the affected land, preventing the expansion of illegal mining as well, into protected areas and other forested lands.
In USA illegal mining has been considered as a destructive agent. In light of this; Amazonian communities, their forests and ecosystems have been destroyed by illegal miners; and this lead to the signature of a Memorandum of understanding in 2017 between USA and Peru to combat illegal gold mining (Jene, 2019); this ensures long life of environmental ecosystems. In India, illegal mining takes place in abandoned mining sites and its effects appear allover the whole region where human being encounters serious problems (Mari Hayman, 2013). UN (2018) reported that illegal mining leads to the blood diamond; that’sconflict diamonds between rebels and international recognized governments. Mari Hayman (2013) says that blood diamonds are used to fund military actions in opposition to those governments. World diamonds council (2016) argued that the sale of blood diamonds support drug trafficking and terrorism which are deadly in nature. In South Africa, illegal mining is a criminal and highly dangerous activity. The most concerned minerals are diamonds, chrome and coal (Mineral Council report, 2017). UN (2018) claims that illegal mining in South Africa deserves a whole range of negative social impact across the board; these are like death of illegal miners, volunteers in rescuing those who have been trapped underground. And this presents major threats to African governments in safeguarding their population (Mining Review Africa, 2019).
In DRC, much mining has been done illegally with a high level of child labor and workplace injury (Hanah, 2019). Sylvain (2018) said that some armed groups in DRC finance their operations through the illegal mining, thereby destructive conflicts in the region.
In Rwanda, illegal mining is carried out to extract cassiterite, Wolfram and Coltan. Rwanda Mines Petroleum and Gas Board (2018) asserted that people died, others get injured due the illegal mining activities. John Kanyangira (2019) suggested that security in mining sites must be granted to rescue the mining operators. RIB (2019) says that illegal mining is risky to people’slives.
In Southern Province areas where illegal mining is practiced include in Huye District; and minerals extracted are like coltan and Cassiterite. In Huye District, illegal mining is conducted in Rwaniro Sector where the minerals like coltan and cassiterite are mostly extracted (Viviane Irabizi, 2019).
Conclusion
Basing to the third research objective aiming to finding out solutions to social, economic and environmental impacts of illegal mining on environment and wellbeing of people of Huye District; the study reveals the Public awareness by RMB (Rwanda Mining Board) agents in collaboration with local authorities was pointed by 57.99% of all respondents intervened in the research process; attracting local and foreign investors to carryout correctly mining was said by 29.59% whereas intervention of security organs to prevent illegal mining was a concern for 12.4 % of the total respondents. For this, Tariro (2013) recommended a high level decision making forum involving all stakeholders to discuss problems of illegal mining and how to limit negative impacts.
An analysis done on the Hypothesis Testing through modeling and regression of coefficients, says that R = 0.809 representing avery high correlation; and the study was immediately said to have model prediction of the existence Economic, Social and Environmental impacts on human wellbeing, thereby adoption of the null hypothesis. Additionally the existence of the correlation was found statistically significant as its p-value is smaller than 0.05. And this is similar to what Tariro (2013) found in his study “Case Studies of Environmental Impacts of Sand Mining and Gravel Extraction for Urban Development in Gaborone; pit sand and gravel are extracted from open areas creating uncovered deep pits, which caused of accidents to children and livestock, erosion and environmental degradation occur due to continuous mining.
