Lithium is a crucial component of electric vehicle batteries, and Zimbabwe is the largest producer of lithium in Africa. The Zimbabwean government promotes mining to stimulate socio-economic development, but new lithium mining has had devastating environmental and social effects, including displacement of communities from their ancestral land. A recent research traces how 41 families in Buhera were displaced from their homes to make way for Zimbabwe's third largest lithium mine, owned by China's Sabi Star mining company.
Buhera is a remote rural area in south-eastern Zimbabwe, one of several places in the country where lithium is currently being mined. A Chinese company (Max Mind Investments) which runs the Sabi Star mine was granted over 55 mining claims in the area in September 2021. This company is expected to extract lithium deposits in the area for over 20 years.
The research aimed to assess whether the displaced families had been given the opportunity to exercise free, prior and informed consent about whether to leave their land, how they had agreed to leave, and what happened to them afterwards. The interviews with civil society organizations and public documents showed that the relocated families accepted a promise of new houses of a certain size but received smaller homes that developed cracks four months after they moved in. Villagers also said that the Mukwasi dam, which they had depended on for irrigation and livestock drinking water, was taken over by the mining company.
There has been little research in Zimbabwe before this on the transition to renewable energy and forced displacement and resettlement of communities. The Zimbabwean government urgently needs to set up responsible resettlement policies and safeguards for communities whose land is rich in minerals and who will be asked to relocate. This research provides essential data for that to happen.
Broken promises
In all development projects that encroach on people's land, the affected people have the right to refuse to leave their land. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples contains this right of free, prior and informed consent. In Buhera, smallholder farmers and artisanal miner families working on their own ancestral land were moved off their land and out of their homes. They lost access to natural resources such as water, grazing land, and fruit trees, and were given less compensation than they had asked for.
Houses were allocated per family, regardless of the size. The Mines and Minerals Act of Zimbabwe says mining corporates must compensate communities, but because of factors like weak governance and corruption, this law is not properly followed.
Forms of displacement in Buhera include physical displacement, economic displacement, and cultural displacement. Physical displacement involves the permanent relocation of communities from Mukwasi village, while economic displacement restricts communities from using farming land and water for fishing and livestock grazing. Cultural displacement refers to the impact of land grabbing and restricted natural resource access on culture.
Planning for impacts
In cases where resettlement is unavoidable, communities must be able to say that they've been left better off than they were before. The research recommends baseline studies, the right to free, prior and informed consent, involved communities in decision-making about the mining project and resettlement planning, compensation for losses, evaluation of resettlement schemes, and establishment of grievance mechanisms for people to raise problems about the project and resettlement outcomes.
This article is republished from The Conversation. Click here to read the original article.
