Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Legalising communal artisanal small-scale miners

23 September 2020 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied

Zama Sithole, a master’s student in Environmental Managementat the University of the Free State (UFS), would one day like to assist communal artisanal small-scale miners (ASM) to legalise their work. Although the ASMs are not involved in turf wars or criminality as in the case of zama-zamas, they are deemed illegal workers.

The prime mining legislation, the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, makes no provision for subsistence or communal ASM activities. Such miners are therefore considered illegal miners.

“ASM employs more than 20 million people globally and a country such as South Africa, with an unemployment rate of 30,1%, should assimilate this type of mining as a legal form of employment,” says Zama.

“Their only client base is the surrounding communities. Mining, besides government grants, is their only source of income.”

Zama aspires to assist the illegal miners to become legal and reap the benefits of skills and funding to increase their income.

“And guidance from the regulatory authorities will ensure that the communal ASM miners become more aware of environmental management,” she adds.

Zama recently presented her research, titled: Shortcomings of the South African Legislative Framework in Addressing Communal Artisanal Small-scale Mining: A Blaauwbosch Case Studyat the 2020 Environmental Law Association (ELA) Annual Student Conference.

She also received the award for Best Speaker at the conference.

In her research, Zama focuses on Blaauwbosch, a rural township area located south-east of Newcastle in northern KwaZulu-Natal, where subsistence coal and clay opencast mining by community members has been going on for more than four decades.

Environmental degradation

According to the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, mining is only deemed legal if there is a mining permit, mining right, production right or preferent mining right authorised by the Department of Mineral Resources. Since communal ASMs are unregulated, environmental degradation is rife.

According to her investigation, environmental hazards such as traces of acid mine drainage and poor air quality (due to spontaneous combustion), are localised in the area. This is a deterrent to the surrounding community that has minimal health and safety awareness.

Owing to the fact that communal ASM miners are not assimilated into the legislation, the competent authorities such as the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and the Department of Water and Sanitation cannot offer mineral regulation and environmental guidance support.

Losing revenue

Zama says government is also losing revenue by not legalising this unique sector. She believes it is important to differentiate between communal ASMs and the ‘zama-zama’ type of mining.

She also found that according to the Mining and Minerals Policy (1998), “regulations in respect of mining should be relevant, understandable and affordable to the small-scale miner and should be enforced in a site-specific manner.” ... “Tax and royalty rates, levies, and financial guarantees for rehabilitation should not constrain the development of small-scale operations.”

“However, to date, this has not been realised,” Zama states.

Communal ASM miners thus cannot benefit from government-funded initiatives to upskill them in terms of mining and environmental management.

Making a difference

Zama plans to conduct more research to understand the dynamics of how other countries have legalised this sector and draw learnings from this to determine how it can be applied in the South African context.

“In our country, there is very limited data and hence understanding on communal ASM. This could be one of the reasons why the government cannot make an informed decision on how to legalise this sector,” she says.

News Archive

Africa's Black Rhino conservation strategy must change

2017-07-10

The black rhino is on the brink of extinction. The study that was
published in the Nature Scientific Reports reveals that the
species has lost an astonishing 69% of its genetic variation.
Photo: iStock

The conservation strategy of the black rhino in Africa needs to change in order to protect the species from extinction, a group of international researchers has found. The study that was published in the Nature Scientific Reports reveals that the species has lost an astonishing 69% of its genetic variation.

South African researchers took part
The researchers, which included local researchers from the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa (NZG), have highlighted the fact that this means the black rhino is on the brink of extinction. "We have found that there is a decline in genetic diversity, with 44 of 64 genetic lineages no longer existing," said Prof Antoinette Kotze, the Manager of Research and Scientific Services at the Zoo in Pretoria. She is also affiliate Professor in the Department of Genetics at the University of the Free State and has been involved in rhino research in South Africa since the early 2000s.

DNA from museums and the wild
The study compared DNA from specimens in museums around the world, which originated in the different regions of Africa, to the DNA of live wild animals. The DNA was extracted from the skin of museum specimen and from tissue and faecal samples from animals in the wild. The research used the mitochondrial genome.

"The rhino poaching ‘pandemic’
needs to be defeated, because
it puts further strain on the genetic
diversity of the black rhino.”

Ability to adapt
Dr Desire Dalton, one of the collaborators in the paper and a senior researcher at the NZG, said the loss of genetic diversity may compromise the rhinos’ ability to adapt to climate change. The study further underlined that two distinct populations now exists on either side of the Zambezi River. Dr Dalton said these definite populations need to be managed separately in order to conserve their genetic diversity. The study found that although the data suggests that the future is bleak for the black rhinoceros, the researchers did identify populations of priority for conservation, which might offer a better chance of preventing the species from total extinction. However, it stressed that the rhino poaching ‘pandemic’ needs to be defeated, because it puts further strain on the genetic diversity of the black rhino.

Extinct in many African countries
The research report further said that black rhino had been hunted and poached to extinction in many parts of Africa, such as Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Sudan, and Ethiopia. These rhino are now only found in five African countries. They are Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa, where the majority of the animals can be found.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept