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An environmental lobby group has taken the Zimbabwean government and its Chinese partner to court in an attempt to stop a joint coal mining operation in the heart of Hwange National Park.
The park is home to dozens of species of mammals, of which 19 are large herbivores and eight are large carnivores, and 400 species of birds. The most notable of the species is an elephant population of about 44,000.
However, armed with a special grant, the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) and Zhongxin Mining Group Tongmao Coal Company started operations last week, putting the existence of the playground at risk.
Outraged, the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela) and Fedelis Chima, a local Hwange resident, filed an urgent application with the high court on Sunday.
“The issuance of the special grant in February 2019 before the environmental impact assessment violates section 97 of the Environmental Management Act,” argued Zela and Chima.
The lawsuit said the special grant violated the country’s laws because it was awarded by the Ministry of Mines and Development without first consulting the Ministry of the Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality, where an environmental impact assessment certificate is issued.
“The reversal of the legislative process implied not giving interested or affected people the opportunity to participate in administrative decision-making. As a result, decision makers were unable to take advantage of all relevant factors and considerations.
“Authorizing and commencing mining in a protected national park violates the constitutional duty of all respondents to prevent ecological degradation and promote conservation in terms of section 73 (b) of the Zimbabwe constitution,” it reads in application.
Environmentalists argued that if mining continued, the animals would migrate to other parts of the Kavango-Zambezi Transboundary Conservation Area, namely Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Angola. This would negatively affect the tourism sector and the environment. – Additional reporting by John Ncube.
TimesLIVE
