Efficacy of the environmental laws in Zambia's mining sector.
Date
2022
Authors
Mulongwe, Simukali
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
The continued pollution from the mining activities in Zambia both legacy and current operations
is associated with the weak and unclear existing environmental legislation coupled with poor
institutional arrangement of enforcement and monitoring. Implementing policies that are weak
and not in line with the best international practices can have unintended consequences. One such
example is lead contamination in Kabwe District and other legacy environmental liabilities have
impacted on the communities negatively (effect of Sulphur dioxide in Kankoyo township of
Mufulira) and also the old tailing dumps on the Copperbelt Province have continued to silt and
pollute the streams. In the recent past, the Government of the Republic of Zambia has through
heft loans from the World Bank attempted to conduct environmental remediation and
rehabilitation as a result of both legacy and current environmental liabilities; a situation
avoidable if there was an effective environmental framework in place. Therefore, the purpose of
this qualitative study which employed case study and phenomenological study designs was to
assess the efficacy of the environmental laws in Zambia’s mining sector. The research objective
was to analyse the extent to which environmental stewardship in the mining sector is applied.
This involved answering questions on the extent to which the environmental stewardship was
applied, institutional capacity and enforcement procedures, gaps or weaknesses identified and
recommendations of best mining practice. Data collection was conducted through desktop
reviews for the case study component and through open ended interview questions. Thematic
analysis was employed to analyse the data based on common themes and themes formulated
from the interview question. The research revealed that existing anomalies and non-compliance
could be associated to both lack of good and clear pieces of legislation governing the mining
sector, poor institutional arrangement on environmental governance (there is no proper
coordination especially with the local municipalities) and irregular of inspections, monitoring
and enforcements due to resource constraints. The study recommended that the policy governing
environment in the mining sector be revised to respond to current issues, introduce the green
court to speedy and strengthen enforcement, decentralise Zambia Environmental Management
Agency (ZEMA) and Mines Safety Department (MSD) to have physical presence in all the
provinces.
Keywords: Efficacy, Environmental Laws, Pollution, Remediation.
Description
Thesis
Keywords
Mining law--Zambia. , Environmental laws -- Zambia. , Mining Laws--Environmental.