Maputo — The general director of the Zambezi Planning Office (GPZ), Sergio Vieira, has argued that the state must not encourage artisanal mining in the Zambezi Valley, reports Thursday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".
Giving a lecture in Maputo, Vieira warned that artisanal mining could have negative impacts on the environment and would not allow sustainable development. He said that Mozambique needs to promote the sustainable use of its resources, otherwise they will quickly be exhausted, to the detriment of future generations.
Vieira said that he is against the idea of encouraging small scale mining in the Zambezi Valley as a state strategy to attain control over this activity and ensure the collection of taxes that are currently being lost because of the fraudulent manner in which resources are being exploited.
He was thus reacting to a proposal that the state should invest more in mining rather in agriculture because the latter is a risky activity, and the country does not have any agricultural insurance.
Those who take this position argue that if the state encourages artisanal mining it will open space for more involvement of communities, in previously defined areas, while designing mechanisms for a more effective control of production and the revenue thus created.
They further argue that this activity will provide an alternative for their survival in areas where peasant agriculture yields poor results.
But Vieira believed that the best way to circumvent this situation is to find ways to make better use of the agricultural potential in the Zambezi Valley and leave mining to be done in a gradual and sustainable manner, and not in an intensive basis.
On the other hand, he added, one must take into account that small scale mining is controlled by groups of individuals, mostly foreigners, who not only have no mastery over mining techniques, but also have few resources to do the work properly.
'If we look back we will recall cases of countries that adopted this practice, exploiting their resources on a mass scale, and even opening their doors to foreign companies to come and exploit them. The result was that the resources ran out after a short time, and today those countries are in a situation where they do not remember ever having won any advantages from this", said Vieira.
He added that one of the major problems, particularly in prospecting for gold, is the use of mercury to separate gold from other metals, a process that involves washing the ore in rivers, which contaminates the water, with serious consequences for aquatic life, some of which then enters the human food chain.
