Sustainable Livelihoods and Artisanal Mining in Marange, Zimbabwe, 2006-16

Abstract

The recent discovery of alluvial diamonds in Marange, Zimbabwe, has rekindled the interest of environmental scholars in critiquing the political economy of artisanal mining. The increasing recurrence of this 'illegal' small-scale mining has partly been attributed to its 'lucrative' nature, but more importantly as a safety net to the deepening crises rooted in the country's adverse economic climate in the period under review. The economic structural adjustments during the 1990s, the hefty off-budget gratuities awarded to restive war veterans in 1997, the country's ill-fated intervention in the DRC war in 1988 and the violent land seizures of the early 2000s have contributed to this prolonged setback. This paper first assesses the sustainability of artisanal mining as a livelihood option mostly for the unemployed. It appears that diamond mining produced positive outcomes for some, but by no means all, artisanal miners who accumulated considerable wealth in cattle and real estate. Others failed to break through altogether, suffering heavy losses, including deaths under mining pits. The paper then explores the effects of artisanal mining on the physical environment, including river denudation and soil erosion, deforestation, creation of wastelands and pollution of water bodies. The overriding argument of this study is that artisanal mining has continued to be a sustainable livelihood avenue in spite of its well-known negative impacts. The study is based on semi-structured interviews conducted between 2015 and 2017 with artisanal miners, security personnel, rural district councillors, environmental authorities and former employees of defunct mining firms in Marange. Other sources of data included community-based organisations and civil society groups, as well as newspapers that reported on the unfolding events in Marange at the time.